
Class „ 

Book 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES, 



NEW AND OLD, 



V 






NOW FIRST PUBLISHED IN COMPLETE FORM. 



> > i 



SOLD ONL Y BY SUBSCRIPTION 






THE AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY. 

HARTFORD, CONN., AND CHICAGO, ILL. 
l890. 






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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by 

SAMUEL L. CLEMENS, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



. < c- c « c c 



• • • 



' * c c »c » 



l €>« _• . 



o 






PEEFACE. 



I have scattered through this volume a mass of matter which has never been 

in print before, (such as " Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls," 

the "Jumping Frog restored to the English tongue after martyrdom in the 

French," the " Membranous Croup " sketch, and many others which I need not 

specify) : not doing this in order to make an advertisement of it, but because 

tLese things seemed instructive. 

Mark Twain. 
Hartfobd, 1875. 



INDEX. 



My "Watch — An Instructive Little Talk, . • . 

Political Economy, ...... 

-The Jumping Frog, ...... 

Journalism in Tennessee, ..... 

Story of the Bad Little Boy, . . . . . 

Story of the Good Little Boy, .... 

Two Poems — By Moore and Twain, .... 

A Visit to Niagara, ...... 

Answers to Correspondents, . . . • 

To Raise Poultry, ...... 

The Experiences of the McWilliamses with Membranous Croup, 
My First Literary Venture, .... 

How the Author was Sold in Newark, . . • 

The Office Bore, ...... 

Johnny Greer, . . . . . • • 

The Facts in the Case of the Great Beef Contract, • 
The Facts in the Case of George Fisher, Deceased, . • 

Disgraceful Persecution of a Boy, • 

The Judge's " Spirited Woman," .... 

Information Wanted, ...... 

Some Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls, Part First, • 

** " " " " Part Second. 

" " " « " Part Third, . 

The Facts Concerning the Late Senatorial Secretaryship, 
A Fashion Item, ....... 

Riley — Newspaper Correspondent, .... 

A Fine Old Man, ....... 

Science vs. Luck, ...... 

The Killing of Julius Caesar Localized, . . • 

An Item which the Editor himself could not understand, 



17 

21 

28 

44 

51 

56 

62 

63 

73 

81 

85 

93 

96 

98 

100 

101 

109 

117 

121 

123 

126 

137 

144 

149 

153 

154 

158 

159 

162 

167 



INDEX. 



The Widow's Protest, • . 

A Mediaeval Romance, • • • 

Petition Concerning Copyright, • 

After-Dinner Speech, . • • 

Lionizing Murderers, . • 

A New Crime, .... 

A Curious Dream, . . • 

A True Story Just as I Heard It, . • 

Personal Habits of the Siamese Twins, 

Speech at the Scottish Banquet at London, 

A Ghost Story, 

Legend of the Capitoline Venus, 

Speech on Accident Insurance, 

John Chinaman in New York, . f 

How I once Edited an Agricultural Paper, 

The Petrified Man, .... 

My Bloody Massacre, . . . 

The Undertaker's Chat, ... 

Concerning Chambermaids, . 

"After" Jenkins, ... 

Aurelia's Unfortunate Young Man, . 

About Barbers, .... 

" Party Cries " in Ireland, 

The Facts Concerning the Recent Resignation, 

History Repeats Itself, . . . 

Honored as a Curiosity, 

The Late Benjamin Franklin, . • 

The "Blind Letter" Department, London 

First Interview with Artemus Ward, 

Cannibalism in the Cars, . 

The Scriptural Panoramist, . • 

From " Hospital Days," . 

Curing a Cold, 

A Curious Pleasure Excursion, . . 

Running for Governor, 

A Mysterious Visit, 



P.O., 



1G6 

171 

179 

180 

182 

187 

192 

202 

208 

213 

215 

222 

229 

231 

233 

239 

243 

247 

250 

256 

253 

257 

262 

264 

271 

273 

275 

279 

283 

287 

296 

299 

300 

306 

311 

316 



£ 




AN INSTRUCTIVE LITTLE TALE. 

MY beautiful new watch had run 
eighteen months without los- 
ing or gaining, and without 
breaking any part of its machinery or 
stopping. I had come to believe it 
infallible in its judgments about the 
time of day, and to consider its con- 
stitution and its anatomy imperisha- 
ble. But at last, one night, I let it 
run down. I grieved about it as if it 
were a recognized messenger and fore- 
runner of calamity. But by-and-by I 
cheered up, set the watch by guess, and commanded my bodings and superstitions 
to depart. Next day 1 stepped into the chief jeweler's to set it by the exact 

2 17 



i8 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



time, and the head of the establishment took it out of my hand and proceeded to 
set it for me. Then he said, " She is four minutes slow — regulator wants pushing 
up." I tried to stop him — tried to make him understand that the watch kept per- 
fect time. But no ; all this human cabbage could see was that the watch was four 
minutes slow, and the regulator must be pushed up a little ; and so, while I danced 
around him in anguish, and implored him to let the watch alone, he calmly and 
cruelly did the shameful deed. My watch began to gain. It gained faster and 
faster day by day. Within the week it sickened to a raging fever, and its pulse 



went up to a hun- 
shade. At the end 
had left all the 
town far in the 
fraction over thir- 
the almanac. It 
vember enjoying 
October leaves 
It hurried up house 
and such things, in 
that I could not 
to the watchmaker 
asked me if I had 
paired. I said no, 
any repairing. He 
vicious happiness 




dred and fifty in the 
of two months it 
timepieces of the 
r e a r, a n d was a 
teen days ahead of 
was away into No- 
the snow, while the 
were still turning, 
rent, bills payable, 
such a ruinous way 
abide it. I took it 
to be regulated. He 
ever had it re- 
it had neverneeded 
looked a look of 
and eagerly pried 



the watch open, and then put a small dice box into his eye and peered into its- 
machinery. He said it wanted cleaning and oiling, besides regulating — come in a 
week. After being cleaned and oiled, and regulated, my watch slowed down to 
that degree that it ticked like a tolling bell. I began to be left by trains, I failed 
all appointments, I got to missing my dinner; my watch strung out three days' 
grace to four and let me go to protest; I gradually drifted back into yesterday, 
then day before, then into last week, and by-and-by the comprehension came upon 
me that all solitary and alone I was lingering along in week before last, and the 



AN INSTRUCTIVE LITTLE TALE. 



19 



world was out of sight. I seemed to detect in myself a sort of sneaking fellow- 
feeling for the mummy in the museum, and a desire to swap news with him. I 
went to a watchmaker again. He took the watch all to pieces while I waited, and 
then said the barrel was " swelled." He said he could reduce it in three days. 
After this the watch averaged well, but nothing more. For half a day it would go 
like the very mischief, and keep up such a barking and wheezing, and whooping and 
sneezing and snorting, that I could not hear myself think for the disturbance; and 
as long as it held out there was not a watch in the land that stood any chance 



against it. But the 
would keep on 
fooling along until 
had left behind 
So at last, at the 
hours, it would trot 
stand all right and 
would show a fair 
age, and no man 
done more or less 
a correct average is 
in a watch, and I 
ment to another 
said the kingbolt 
I was glad it was 
ous. To tell the 
no idea what the 




rest of the day it 
slowing down and 
all the clocks it 
caught up again, 
end of twenty-four 
up to the judges' 
just in time. It 
and square aver- 
could say it had 
than its duty. But 
only a mild virtue 
took this instru- 
watchmaker. He 
was broken. I said 
nothing more seri- 
plain truth, I had 
kingbolt was, but I 



did not choose to appear ignorant to a stranger. He repaired the kingbolt, but 
what the watch gained in one way it lost in another. It would run awhile and then 
stop awhile, and then run awhile again, and so on, using its own discretion about 
the intervals. And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket. I padded 
my breast for a few days, but finally took the watch to another watchmaker. He 
picked it all to pieces, and turned the ruin over and over under his glass; and 
then he said there appeared to be something the matter with the hair-trigger. He 



20 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



fixed it, and gave it a fresh start. It did well now, except that always at ten minutes 
to ten the hands would shut together like a pair of scissors, and from that time 
forth they would travel together. The oldest man in the world could not make 
head or tail of the time of day by such a watch, and so I went again to have the 
thing repaired. This person said that the crystal had got bent, and that the main- 
spring was not straight. He also- remarked that part of the works needed half- 
soling. He made these things all right, and then my timepiece performed unex- 
ceptionably, save that now and then, after working along quietly for nearly eight 
hours, everything inside would let go all of a sudden and begin to buzz like a bee, 
and the hands would straightway begin to spin round and round so fast that their 
individuality was lost completely, and they simply seemed a delicate spider's web 
over the face of the watch. She would reel off the next twenty-four hours in 
six or seven minutes, and then stop with a bang. I went with a heavy heart to one 
more watchmaker, and looked on while he took her to pieces. Then I prepared 
to cross-question him rigidly, for this thing was getting serious. The watch had 
cost two hundred dollars originally, and I seemed to have paid out two or three 
thousand for repairs. While I waited and looked on I presently recognized in 
this watchmaker an old acquaintance — a steamboat engineer of other days, and not 
a good engineer either. He examined all the parts carefully, just as the other 
watchmakers had done, and then delivered his verdict with the same confidence 
of manner. 

He said — 

"She makes too much steam— you want to hang the monkey-wrench on the 
safety-valve !" 

I brained him on the spot, and had him buried at my own expense. 

My uncle William (now deceased, alas !) used to say that a good horse was a 
good horse until it had run away once, and that a good watch was a good watch 
until the repairers got a chance at it. And he used to wonder what became of 
all the unsuccessful tinkers, and gunsmiths, and shoemakers, and engineers, and 
blacksmiths ; but nobody could ever tell him. 




Political Economy is the basis of all 
good government. The wisest men of all 
ages have brought to bear upon this subject 
the— 

[Here I was interrupted and in- 
formed that a stranger wished to see 
me down at the door. I went and con- 
fronted him, and asked to know his 
business, struggling all the time to keep 
a tight rein on my seething political 
economy ideas, and not let them break 
away from me or get tangled in their 
harness. And privately I wished the 

stranger was in the bottom of the canal with a cargo of wheat on top of him. 

I was all in a fever, but he was cool. He said he was sorry to disturb me, but 

21 



22 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

as he was passing he noticed that I needed some lightning-rods. I said, "Yes, yes — 
go on — what about it ?" He said there was nothing about it, in particular — nothing 
except that he would like to put them up for me. I am new to housekeeping ; have 
been used to hotels and boarding-houses all my life. Like anybody else of similar 
experience, I try to appear (to strangers) to be an old housekeeper; consequently 
I said in an off-hand way that I had been intending for some time to have six or 

eight lightning-rods put up, but The stranger started, and looked inquiringly 

at me, but I was serene. I thought that if I chanced to make any mistakes, he 
would not catch me by my countenance. He said he would rather have my custom 
than any man's in town. I said, "All right," and started off to wrestle with my 
great subject again, when he called me back and said it would be necessary to 
know exactly how many "points " I wanted put up, what parts of the house I wanted 
them on, and what quality of rod I preferred. It was close quarters for a man not 
used to the exigencies of housekeeping; but I went through creditably, and he 
probably never suspected that I was a novice. I told him to put up eight " points," 
and put them all on the roof, and use the best quality of rod. He said he could 
furnish the " plain " article at 20 cents a foot; "coppered," 25 cents; "zinc-plated 
spiral-twist," at 30 cents, that would stop a streak of lightning any time, no matter 
where it was bound, and " render its errand harmless and its further progress 
apocryphal." I said apocryphal was no slouch of a word, emanating from the source 
it did, but, philology aside, I liked the spiral-twist and would take that brand. 
Then he said he could make two hundred and fifty feet answer; but to do it right, 
and make the best job in town of it, and attract the admiration of the just and the 
unjust alike, and compel all parties to say they never saw a more symmetrical and 
hypothetical display of lightning-rods since they were born, he supposed he really 
couldn't get along without four hundred, though he was not vindictive, and trusted 
he was willing to try. I said, go ahead and use four hundred, and make any kind 
of a job he pleased out of it, but let me get back to my work. So I got rid of him 
at last ; and now, after half-an-hour spent in getting my train of political economy 
thoughts coupled together again, I am ready to go on once more.] 

richest treasures of their genius, their experience of life, and their learning. The great lights of 
commercial jurisprudence, international confraternity, and biological deviation, of •all ages, all 
civilizations, and all nationalities, from Zoroaster down to Horace Greeley, have 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 23 



[Here I was interrupted again, and required to go down and confer further with 
that lightning-rod man. I hurried off, boiling and surging with prodigious thoughts 
wombed in words of such majesty that each one of them was in itself a straggling 
procession of syllables that might be fifteen minutes passing a given point, and once 
more I confronted him — he so calm and sweet, I so hot and frenzied. He was 
standing in the contemplative attitude of the Colossus of Rhodes, with one foot on 
my infant tuberose, and the other among my pansies, his hands on his hips, his 
hat-brim tilted forward, one eye shut and the other gazing critically and admiringly 
in the direction of my principal chimney. He said now there was a state of things 
to make a man glad to be alive ; and added, " I leave it to you if you ever saw any- 
thing more deliriously picturesque than eight lightning-rods on one chimney?" I 
said I had no present recollection of anything that transcended it. He said that 
in his opinion nothing on earth but Niagara Falls was superior to it in the way of 
natural scenery. All that was needed now, he verily believed, to make my house a 
perfect balm to the eye, was to kind of touch up the other chimneys a little, and 
thus "add to the generous coup d'oji'l a soothing uniformity of achievement which 
would allay the excitement naturally consequent upon the first coup d'etat." I 
asked him if he learned to talk out of a book, and if I could borrow it anywhere ? 
He smiled pleasantly, and said that his manner of speaking was not taught in books, 
and that nothing but familiarity witli lightning could enable a man to handle his 
conversational style with impunity. He then figured up an estimate, and said that 
about eight more rods scattered about my roof would about fix me right, and he 
guessed five hundred feet of stuff would do it; and added that the first eight had 
got a little the start of him, so to speak, and used up a mere trifle of material more 
than he had calculated on — a hundred feet or along there. I said I was in a dreadful 
hurry, and I wished we could get this business permanently mapped out, so that I 
could go on with my work. He said, " I could have put up those eight rods, and 
marched off about my business — some men would have done it. But no: I said to 
myself, this man is a stranger to me, and I will die before I'll wrong him; there 
ain't lightning-rods enough on that house, and for one I'll never stir out of my 
tracks till I've done as I would be done by, and told him so. Stranger, my duty 
is accomplished ; if the recalcitrant and dephlogistic messenger of heaven strikes 



24 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

your " " There, now, there," I said, " put on the other eight — add five hundred 

feet of spiral-twist — do anything and everything you want to do; but calm your 
sufferings, and try to keep your feelings where you can reach them with the dic- 
tionary. Meanwhile, if we understand each other now, I will go to work again.'* 
I think I have been sitting here a full hour, this time, trying to get back to where I 
was when my train of thought was broken up by the last interruption ; but I believe 
I have accomplished it at last, and may venture to proceed again.] 

wrestled with this great subject, and the greatest among them have found it a worthy adversary, and 
one that always comes up fresh and smiling after every throw. The great Confucius said that he 
would rather be a profound political economist than chief of police. Cicero frequently said that 
political economy was the grandest consummation that the human mind was capable of consuming ; 
and even omr own Greeley has said vaguely but forcibly that " Political 

[Here the lightning-rod man sent up another call for me. I went down in a 
state of mind bordering on impatience. He said he would rather have died than 
interrupt me, but when he was employed to do a job, and that job was expected to 
be done in a clean, workmanlike manner, and when it was finished and fatigue 
urged him to seek the rest and recreation he stood so much in need of, and he was 
about to do it, but looked up and saw at a glance that all the calculations had been 
a little out, and if a thunder storm were to come up, and that house, which he felt 
a personal interest in, stood there with nothing on earth to protect it but sixteen 

lightning-rods " Let us have peace !" I shrieked. "Put up a hundred and 

fifty ! Put some on the kitchen ! Put a dozen on the barn ! Put a couple on the 
cow ! — Put one on the cook ! — scatter them all over the persecuted place till it 
looks like a zinc-plated, spiral-twisted, silver-mounted cane-break ! Move ! Use 
up all the material you can get your hands on, and when you run out of lightning- 
rods put up ram-rods, cam-rods, stair-rods, piston-rods — anything that will pander 
to your dismal appetite for artificial scenery, and bring respite to my raging brain 
and healing to my lacerated soul!" Wholly unmoved — further than to smile 
sweetly — this iron being simply turned back his wristbands daintily, and said " He 
would now proceed to hump himself." Well, all that was nearly three hours ago. 
It is questionable whether I am calm enough yet to write on the noble theme of 
political economy, but I cannot resist the desire to try, for it is the one subject that 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 25 



is nearest to my heart and dearest to my brain of all this world's philosophy.] 
" economy is hcavetfs best boon to many When the loose but gifted Byron lay in his Venetian 



exile he observed that, if it could be granted him to go back and live his misspent life over again, 
he would give his lucid and unintoxicated intervals to the composition, not of frivolous rhymes, but 
of essays upon political economy. Washington loved this exquisite science ; such names as Baker, 
Beckwith, Judson, Smith, are imperishably linked with it ; and even imperial Homer, in the ninth 
book of the Iliad, has said : — 

Fiat justitia, mat caelum, 
Post mortem unum, ante bellum, 
Hie jacet hoc, ex-parte res. 
Politicum e-conomico est. 

The grandeur of these conceptions of the old poet, together with the felicity of the wording which 
clothes them, and the sublimity of the imagery whereby they are illustrated, have singled out that 
stanza, and made it more celebrated than any that ever 

[" Now, not a word out of you — not a single word. Just state your bill and 
relapse into impenetrable silence for ever and ever on these premises. Nine 
hundred dollars? Is that all? This check for the amount will be honored at any 
respectable bank in America. What is that multitude of people gathered in the 
street for? How ? — ' looking at the lightning-rods !' Bless my life, did they never 
see any lightning-rods before ? Never saw ' such a stack of them on one establish- 
ment,' did I understand you to say? I will step down and critically observe this 
popular ebullition of ignorance."] 

Three Days Later. — We are all about worn out. For four-and-twenty hours 
our bristling premises were the talk and wonder of the town. The theatres lan- 
guished, for their happiest scenic inventions were tame and commonplace compared 
with my lightning-rods. Our street was blocked night and day with spectators, and 
among them were many who came from the country to see. It was a blessed relief 
on the second day, when a thunder-storm came up and the lightning began to "go 
for " my house, as the historian Josephus quaintly phrases it. It cleared the gal- 
leries, so to speak. In five minutes there was not a spectator w'thin half a mile of 
my place ; but all the high houses about that distance away were full, windows, 
roof, and all And well they might be, for all the falling stars and Fourth-of-July 



26 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



fireworks of a generation, put together and rained down simultaneously out of 
heaven in one brilliant shower upon one helpless roof, would not have any advan- 
tage of the pyrotechnic display that was making my house so magnificently con- 
spicuous in the general gloom of the storm. By actual count, the lightning struck 
at my establishment seven hundred and sixty-four times in forty minutes, but 
tripped on one of those faithful rods every time, and slid down the spiral twist and 




shot into the earth before it probably had time to be surprised at the way the thing 
was done. And through all that bombardment only one patch of slates was ripped 
up, and that was because, for a single instant, the rods in the vicinity were trans- 
porting all the lightning they could possibly accommodate. Well, nothing was ever 
seen like it since the world began. For one whole day and night not a member 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 27 



of my family stuck his head out of the window but he got the hair snatched off 
it as smooth as a billiard-ball ; and if the reader will believe me, not one of us ever 
dreamt of stirring abroad. But at last the awful siege came to an end — because 
there was absolutely no more electricity left in the clouds above us within grappling 
distance of my insatiable rods. Then I sallied forth, and gathered daring workmen 
together, and not a bite or a nap did we take till the premises were utterly stripped 
of all their terrific armament except just three rods on the house, one on the 
kitchen, and one on the barn — and behold these remain there even unto this day. 
And then, and not till then, the people ventured to use our street again. I will 
remark here, in passing, that during that fearful time I did not continue my essay 
upon political economy. I am not even yet settled enough in nerve and brain to 
resume it. 

To Whom it May Concern. — Parties having need of three thousand two hundred 
and eleven feet of best quality zinc-plated spiral-twist lightning-rod stuff, and 
sixteen hundred and thirty-one silver-tipped points, all in tolerable repair (and, 
although much worn by use, still equal to any ordinary emergency), can hear of a 
bargain by addressing the publisher. 




IN ENGLISH. THEN IN FRENCH. 
THEN CLAWED BACK INTO A 
CIVILIZED LANGUAGE ONCE MORE 
BY PATIENT, UNRENUMERATED 
TOIL. 

EVEN a criminal is entitled 
to fair play; and certainly 
when a man who has done 
no harm has been unjustly treated, 
he is privileged to do his best to 
right himself. My attention has 
just been called to an article some 
three years old in a French Maga- 
zine entitled, "Revue des Deux 
Mondes" (Review of Some Two Worlds), wherein the writer treats of "Les 
Humoristes Americaines" (These Humorists Americans). I am one of these 

28 



THE JUMPING FROG. 29 



humorists Americans dissected by him, and hence the complaint I am making. 
This gentleman's article is an able one (as articles go, in the French, where 
they always tangle up everything to that degree that when you start into a sen- 
tence you never know whether you are going to come out alive or not). It is a 
very good article, and the writer says all manner of kind and complimentary 
things about me — for which I am sure I thank him with all my heart; but then 
why should he go and spoil all his praise by one unlucky experiment? What 
I refer to is this: he says my Jumping Frog is a funny story, but still he can't 
see why it should ever really convulse anyone with laughter — and straightway 
proceeds to translate it into French in order to prove to his nation that there is 
nothing so very extravagantly funny about it. Just there is where my complaint 
originates. He has not translated it at all; he has simply mixed it all up; it is 
no more like the Jumping Frog when he gets through with it than I am like a 
meridian of longitude. But my mere assertion is not proof; wherefore I print 
the French version, that all may see that I do not speak falsely ; furthermore, in 
order that even the unlettered may know my injury and give me their compas- 
sion,. I have been at infinite pains and trouble to re-translate this French version 
back into English ; and to tell the truth I have well nigh worn myself out at it, 
having scarcely rested from my work during five days and nights. I cannot 
speak the French language, but I can translate very well, though not fast, I 
being self-educated. I ask the reader to run his eye over the original English 
version of the Jumping Frog, and then read the French or my re-translation, 
and kindly take notice how the Frenchman has riddled the grammar. I think it 
is the worst I ever saw ; and yet the French are called a polished nation. If I 
had a boy that put sentences together as they do, I would polish him to some 
purpose. Without further introduction, the Jumping Frog, as I originally 
wrote it, was as follows — [after it will be found the French version, and after 
the latter my re-translation from the French] : 

THE NOTORIOUS JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS* COUNTY. 
In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the Fast, I called on 
good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after my iriend's friend, Leonidas 

* Pronounced Cal-e-i'a-ras, 



3° 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that 
Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth ; that my friend never knew such a personage ; and that he only 
Conjectured that if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamous Jim 
Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me to death with some exasperating reminiscence of 
him as long and as tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it succeeded. 

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the dilapidated tavern in the 
decayed mining camp of Angel's, and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an 
expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up, 
and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had commissioned me to make some inquiries 



about a cherished 
boyhood named Le- 
Rev. Leondias W. 
minister of the Gos- 
heard was at one 
Angel's Camp. I 
Wheeler could tell 
this Rev. Leonidas 
feel under many ob- 
Simon Wheeler 
corner and block- 
his chair, and then 
off the monotonous 
lows this paragraph, 
never frowned, he 
voice from the gen- 
which he tuned his 
never betrayed the 
enthusiasm ; but all 
inable narrative 
impressive earnest- 




companion of his 
ondias W. Smiley — 
Smiley, a young 
pel, who he had 
time a resident of 
added that if Mr. 
me anything about 
W. Smiley, I would 
ligations to him. 
backed me into a 
aded me there with 
sat down and reeled 
narrative which fol- 
He never smiled, he 
never changed his 
tie-flowing key to 
initial sentence, he 
slightest suspicion of 
through the interm- 
there ran a vein of 
ness and sincerity, 



which showed me plainly that, so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or 
funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admired its two heroes as 
men of transcendent genius in finesse. I let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him 
once. 

"Rev. Leonidas W. H'm, Reverend Le — well, there was a feller here once by the name of Jim 
Smiley, in the winter of '49 — or may be it was the spring of '50 — I don't recollect exactly, some- 
how, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume 



THE JUMPING FROG. 



3i 



warn't finished when he first come to the camp ; but any way, he was the curiosest man about al- 
ways betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other 
side ; and if he couldn't he'd change sides. Any way that suited the other man would suit him — 
any way just so's he got a bet, he was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky ; he most 
always come out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance ; there couldn't be no soli- 
t'ry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take ary side you please, as I was just 
telling you. If there was a horse-race, you'd find him flush or you'd find him busted at the end of 
it ; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it ; if there was a cat-fight, he'd Ijet on it ; if there was a 
chicken-fight, he'd bet on it ; why, if there was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you 



which one would fly 
a camp-meeting, he 
to bet on Parson Walk- 
to be the best exhort- 
he was too, and a good 
a straddle-bug start to 
would bet you how 
him to get to — t o 
ing to, and if you took 
ler that straddle-bug 
would find out where 
how long he was on 
boys here has seen 
tell you about him. 
no difference to him 
thing — the dangdest 
er's wife laid very 
while, and it seemed 
to save her ; but one 




first ; or if there was 
would be there reg'lar 
er, which he judged 
er about here, and so 
man. If he even see 
go anywheres, he 
long it would take 
wherever he was go- 
him up, he would fol- 
to Mexico but what he 
he was bound for and 
the road. Lots of the 
that Smiley, and can 
Why, it never made 
— he'd bet on any 
feller. Parson Walk- 
sick once, for a good 
as if they warn't going 
morning he come in, 



and Smiley up and asked him how she was, and he said she was considable better — thank the 
Lord for his inf 'nit mercy — and coming on so smart that with the blessing of Prov'dence she.'d get 
well yet ; and Smiley, before he thought says, " Well, I'll resk two-and-a-half sh« don't anyway." 

Thish-yer Smiley had a mare — the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag, but that was only in fun, 
you know, because of course she was faster than that — and he used to win money on that horse, 
for all she was so slow and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or some- 
thing of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards' start, and then pass her 
under way ; but always at the fag-end of the race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come 
cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and 



32 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES.- 

sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust and raising m-o-r-e 
racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose — and ahvays fetch up at the stand just 
about a neck ahead, as near as you could cipher it down. 

And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you'd think he warn't worth a cent but to 
• set around and look ornery and lay for a chance to steal something. But as soon as money was up 
on him he was a different dog ; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of a steamboat, 
and his teeth would uncover and shine like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him and bully- 
rag him, and bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jackson — 
which was the name of the pup — Andrew Jackson would never let on but what he was satisfied, and 
hadn't expected nothing else — a.i I the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the 
time, till the money was all up ; and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest by the 
j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it — not chaw, you understand, but only just grip and hang on till 
they throwed up the sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that pup, till he 
harnessed a dog once that did'nt have no hind legs, because they'd been sawed off in a circular saw, 
and when the thing had gone along far enough, and the money was all up, and he come to make a 
snatch for his pet holt, he see in a minute how he'd been imposed on, and how the other dog had 
him in the door, so to speak, and he 'peared sui-prised, and then he looked sorter discouraged-like, 
and didn't try no more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He give Smiley a look, as 
much as to say his heart was broke, and it was his fault, for putting up a dog that hadn't no hind 
legs for him to take holt of. which was his main dependence in a fight, and then he limped off a 
piece and laid down and died. It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made 
a name for hisself if he'd lived, for the stuff was in him and he had genius — I know it, because he 
hadn't no opportunities to speak of, and it don't stand to reason that a dog could make such a fight 
as he could under them circumstances if he hadn't no talent. It always makes me feel sorry when 
I think of that last fight of his'n, and the way it turned out. 

Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tom-cats and all them kind of 
things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. 
He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'lated to educate him ; and so he 
never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And 
you bet you he did learn him, too. He'd give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you'd 
see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut — see him turn one summerset, or may be a couple, 
if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the 
ma* ter of ketching flies, and kep' him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as fur 
as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do 'most anything 
— and I believe him. Why, I've seen, him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor — Dan'l Web- 
ster was the name of the frog — and sing out, " Flies, Dan'l, flies ! " and quicker'n you could wink 
he'd spring straight up and snake a fly off n the counter there, and flop down on the floor ag'in as 



THE JUMPING FROG. 



33 



Solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as 
as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so 
modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square 
jumping on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his 
breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand ; and when it 
come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous 




proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers that had traveled and been everywheres, all said he 
laid over any frog that ever they see. 

Well, Smiley kep' the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch him down town sometimes 
and lay for a bet. One day a feller — a stranger in the camp, he was — come acrost him with his box, 
and says : 

"What might it be that you've got in the box?" 

And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, " It might be a parrot, or it might be a canary, maybe, 
but it ain't — it's only just a frog." 

3 



34 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way and that, and says, 
" H'm— so 'tis. Well, what's he good for ? " 

" Well," Smiley, says, easy and careless, "he's good enough for one thing, I should judge — he can 
outjump any frog in Calaveras county." 

The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and give it back to Smiley, 
and says, very deliberate, " Well," he says, " I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n 
any other frog." 

*' Maybe you don't," Smiley says. " Maybe you understand frogs and maybe you don't understand 
'em ; maybe you've had experience, and maybe you ain't only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I've 
got my opinion and I'll resk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county." 

And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, " Well, I'm only a stranger here, 
and I ain't got no frog ; but if I had a frog, I'd bet you." 

And then Smiley says, "That's all right — that's all right — if you'll hold my box a minute, I'll go 
and get you a frog." And so the feller took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, 
and set down to wait. 

So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and 
prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot — filled him pretty near 
up to his chin — and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the 
mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller, 
and says : 

" Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his fore-paws just even with Dan'l's, and 
I'll give the word." Then he says, "One — two — three — git!" and him and the feller touched up 
the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off lively, but Dan'l give a heave, and hysted up 
his shoulders — so — like a Frenchman, but it warn't no use — he couldn't budge ; he was planted as 
solid as a church, and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good 
deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter was, of course. 

The feller took the money and started away ; and when he was going out at the door, he sorter 
jerked his thumb over his shoulder — so — at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, " Well," he says 
" / don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog." 

Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long time, and at last he says, 
" I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw'd off for — I wonder if there ain't something the 
matter with him — he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow." And he ketched Dan'l by the nap 
of the neck, and hefted him, and says, "Why blame my cats if he don't weigh five pound !" and 
turned him upside clown and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it 
was, and he was the maddest man — he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he never 
ketched him. And " 

[Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got up to see what was 



THE yUATPINC FROG. 



35 




wanted.] And turning to me as he moved away, he said : " Just set where you are, stranger, and 
rest easy — I ain't going to be gone a second." 

But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of the enterprising vagabond 
Jim Smiley would be likely to afford me much information concerning the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, 
and so I started away. 

At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he button-holed me and re-commenced: 

** Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn't have no tail, only jest a short 
•tump like a bannanner, and " 

However, lacking both time and inclination, I did not wait to hear about the afflicted cow, but 
took my leave. 

Now let the learned look upon this picture and say if iconoclasm can further go : 

[From the Revue des Deux Mondes, of July 15th, 1872.] 
LA GRENOUILLE SANTEUSE DU COMTE DE CALAVERAS. 

• II y avait une fois ici un individu connu sous le nom de Jim Smiley : c'e'tait dans lliiverde 

49,peut-etre bien au printemps de 50, je ne me rappelle pas exactement. Ce qui me fait croire que 



$6 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

c'etait Tun ou l'autre, c'est que je me souviens que le grand bief n'etait pas acheve lorsqu'il arriva 
au camp pour la premiere fois, mais de toutes facons il etait l'homme le plus friand de paris qui se 
put voir, pariant sur tout ce qui se pre'sentait, quand il pouvait trouver un adversaire, et, quand il 
n'en trouvait pas il passait du cote oppose. ' Tout ce qui convenait a l'autre lui convenait ; pourvu 
qu'il eut un pari, Smiley etait satisfait. Et il avait une chance ! une chance inouie : presque toujours 
il gagnait. II faut dire qu'il etait toujours pret a s' exposer, qu' on ne pouvait mentionner la moindre 
chose sans que ce gaillard offrit de parier la-dessus n'importe quoi et de prendre le cote que Ton 
voudrait, comme je vous le disais tout a l'heure. S'il y avait des courses, vous le tiouviez riche ou 
mine a la fin ; s'il y avait un combat de chiens, il apportait son enjeu ; il l'apportait pour un combat 
de chats, pour un combat de coqs ; — parbleu ! si vous aviez vu deux oiseaux sur une haie, il vous 
aurait offert de parier lequel s'envolerait le premier, et, s'il y avait meeting au camp, il venait parier 
regulierement pour le cure Walker, qu'il jugeait etre le meilleur pre'dicateur des environs, et qui 
l'etait en effet, et un brave homme. II aurait rencontre' une punaise de bois en chtmin, qu'il aurait 
parie sur le temps qu'il lui faudrait pour aller ou elle voudrait aller, et, si vous l'aviez pris au mot, il 
aurait suivi la punaise jusqu'au Mexique, sans se soucier d'aller si loin, ni du temps qu'il y perdrait. 
Une fois la femme du cure Walker fut tres malade pendant longtemps, il semblait qu'on ne la 
sauverait pas ; mais un matin le cure arrive, et Smiley lui demande comment elle va, et il dit qu'elle 
est bien mieux, grace a l.'infinie misericorde, tellement mieux qu'avec la benediction de la Provi- 
dence elle s'en tirerait, et voila que, sans y penser, Smiley repond : — Eh bien ! je gage deux et 
demi qu'elle mourra tout de meme. 

" Ce Smiley avait une jument que les gars appelaient le bidet du quart d'heure, mais seulement 
pour plaisanter, vous comprenez, parce que, bien entendu, elle etait plus vite que ,-a ! Et il avait 
coutume de gagner de l'argent avec cette bete, quoiqu'elle fut poussive, cornardfc, toujours prise 
d'asthme, de coliques ou de consomption, ou de quelque chose d'approchant. On lui donnait 2 ou 
300 yards au depart, puis on la de'passait sans peine ; mais jamais a la fin elle n«, manquait de 
s'e'ehauffer, de s' exaspe'rer, et elle arrivait, s'ecartant, se defendant, ses jambes greles en l'air dev«int 
les obstacles, quelquefois les evitant et faisant avec cela plus de poussiere qu'aucun coeval, plus de 
bruit surtout avec ses eternumens et reniflemens, — crac ! elle arrivait done toujours premiere d'une 
tete, aussi juste qu'on peut le mesurer. Et il avait un petit bouledogue qui, a le voir, ^e valait pas 
un sou ; on aurait cru que parier contre lui c'etait voler, tant il etait ordinaire ; mais aussitot les 
enjeux faits, il devenait un autre chien. Sa machoire inferieure commencait a ressortir comme un 
gaillard d'avant, ses dents se decouvraient brillantes comme des fournaises, et un chien pouvait le 
taquiner, l'exciter, le mordre, le jeter deux ou trois fois par-dessus son e'paule, Andre Jackson, c'etait 
le nom du chien, Andre Jackson prenait cela tranquillement, comme s'il ne se fut jamais attendu a 
autre chose, et quand les paris etaient doubles et redoubles contre lui, il vous saisissait l'autre chien 
juste a l'articulation de la jambe de derriere, et il ne la lachait plus, non pas qu'il la machat, vous 
coucevez, mais il s'y serait tenu pendu jusqu'a ce qu'on jetat l'eponge en l'air, fallut-il attendre urn 



THE JUMPING FROG. 37 



an. Smiley gagnait toujours avec cette bete-la ; malheureusement ils ont fini par dresser un 
chien qui n'avait pas de pattes de derriere, parce qu'on les avait sciees, et quand les choses furent 
au point qu'il voulait, et qu'il en vint a se jeter sur son morceau favori, le pauvre chien comprit en 
un instant qu'on s'etait moque de lui, et que l'autre le tenait. Vous n'avez jamais vu personne 
avoir l'air plus penaud et plus decourage ; il ne fit aucun effort pour gagner le combat et 
fut rudement secoue, de sorte que, regardant Smiley comme pour lui dire : — Mon cceur est 
brise, c'est ta faute ; pourquoi m'avoir livre a un chien qui n'a pas de pattes de derriere, puisque 
c'est par la que je les bats? — il s'en alia en clopinant, et se coucha pour mourir. Ah ! c'e'tait un 
bon chien, cet Andre Jackson, et il se serait fait un nom, s'il avait vecu, car il y avait de l'etoffe en 
lui, il avait du genie, je le sais, bien que de grandes occasions lui aient manque ; mais il est impossi- 
ble de supposer qu'un chien capable de se battre comme lui, certaines circonstances etant donnees, 
ait manque de talent. Je me sens triste toutes les fois que je pense a son dernier combat et au 
denoument qu'il a eu. Eh bien ! ce Smiley nourrissait des terriers a rats, et des coqs de combat, et 
des chats, ettoute sorte de choses, au point qu'il e'tait toujours en mesure de vous tenir tete, et qu'avec 
sa rage de paris on n'avait plus de repos. II attrapa un jour une grenouille et l'empc~ta chez 
lui, disant qu'il pretendait faire son education ; vous me croirez si vous voulez, mais pendant !"*ois 
mois il n'a rien fait que lui apprendre a sauter dans une cour retiree de sa maison. Et je vous 
reponds qu'il avait reussi. II lui donnait un petit coup par derriere, et l'instant d'apres vous 
voyiez la grenouille tourner en l'air comme un beignet au-dessus de la poele, faire une culbute, 
quelquefois deux, lorsqu'clle etait bein partie, et retomber sur ses pattes comme un chat. II l'avait 
dressee dans Tart de gober des mouches, et l'y exercait continuellement, si bien qu'une mouche, du 
plus loin qu'elle apparaissait, etait une mouche perdue. Smiley avait coutume de dire que tout ce 
qui manquait a une grenouille, c'e'tait l'e'ducation, qu'avec l'education elle pouvait faire presque 
tout, et je le crois. Tenez, je l'ai vu poser Daniel Webster la sur ce plancher, — Daniel Webster 
etait le nom de la grenouille, — ct lui chanter : — Des mouches ! Daniel, des mouches ! — En un clin 
d'ceil, Daniel avait bondi et saisi une mouche ici sur le comptoir, puis saute de nouveau par terre, ou 
il restait vraiment a se gratter la tete avec sa patte de derriere, comme s'il n'avait pas eu la 
moindre idee de sa supe'riorite. Jamais vous n'avez grenouille vu de aussi modeste, aussi naturelle, 
doue'e comme clle l'etait ! Et quand il s'agissait de sauter purement et simplement sur terrain 
plat, elle faisait plus de chemin en un saut qu'aucune bete de son espece que vous puissiez con- 
naitre. Sauter a plat, c'e'tait son fort ! Quand il s'agissait de cela, Smiley entassait les enjeux 
sur elle tant qu'il lui, restait un rouge liard. II faut le reconnaitre, Smiley etait monstrueusement 
fier de sa grenouille, ct il en avait le droit, car des gens qui avaient voyage, qui avaient tout vu, 
disaicnt qu'on lui ferait injure de la comparer a une autre ; de facon que Smiley gardait Daniel 
dans une petite boite a claire-voie qu'il emporta it parfois a la ville pour quelque pari. 

" Un jour, un individu e'tranger au camp l'arrete avec sa boite et lui dit : — Qu'est-ce que vous 
avez done serre la dedans ? 



38 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

" Smiley dit d'un air indifferent : — Cela puorrait etre un perroquet ou un serin, mais ce u'est rien 
de pareil, ce n'est qu'une grenouille. 

" L'individu la prend, la regarde avec soin, la tourne d'un cote et de l'autre puss il dit. — Tiens ! 
en effet ! A quoi est-elle bonne ? 

" — Mon Dieu ! repond Smiley, toujours d'un air degage, elle est bonne pour une chose a mon 
avis, elle peut battre en sautant toute grenouille du comte de Calaveras. 

" L'individu reprend la boite, l'examine de uouveau longuement, et la rend a Smiley en disant 
d'un air de'libere : — Eh bien ! je ne vois pas que cette grenouille ait rien de mieux qu'aucune 
grenouille. 

" — Possible que vous ne le voyiez pas, dit Smiley, possible que vous vous entendiez en gre- 
ouilles, possible que vous ne vous y entendez point, possible que vous ayez de l'experience, et pos- 
sible que vous ne soyez qu'un amateur. De toute maniere, je parie quarante dollars qu'elle battra 
en sautant n'importe quelle grenouille du comte de Calaveras. 

" L'indiv ; du reflechit une seconde et dit comme attriste : — Je ne suis qu'un etranger ici, je n'ai 
pas de grenouille ; mais, si j'en avais une, je tiendrais le pari. 

" — Fort bien ! repond Smiley. Rien de plus facile. Si vous voulez tenir ma boite une minute, 
j'irai vous chercher une grenouille. — Voila done l'individu qui garde la boite, qui met ses quarante 
dollars sur ceux de Smiley et qui attend. II attend assez longtemps, reflechissant tout seul, et 
figurez-vous qu'il prend Daniel, lui ouvre la bouche de force et avec une cuiller a the l'emplit de 
menu plomb de chasse, mais l'emplit jusqu'au menton, puis il le pose par terre. Smiley pendant 
ce temps etait a barboter dans une mare. Finalement il attrape une grenouille, l'apporte a cet 
individu et dit: — Maintenant, si vous etes pret, mettez-la tout contre Daniel, avec leurs pattes de 
devant sur la raeme ligne, et je donnerai le signal ; — puis il ajoute : — Un, deux, trois, sautez ! 

" Lui et l'individu touchent leurs grenouilles par derriere, et la grenouille neuve se met a sautiller, 
mais Daniel se souleve lourdement, hausse les e'paules ainsi, comme un Francais ; a quoi bon? il ne 
pouvait bouger, il etait plante solide comme une enclume, il n'avancait pas puis que si on l'eiit mis 
a l'ancre. Smiley fut surpris et de'goiite, mais il ne se doutait pas du tour, bien entendu. L'individu 
empoche l'argent, s'en va, et en s'en allant est-ce qu'il ne donne pas un coup de pouce par-dessus 
le'paule, comme 5a, au pauvre Daniel, en disant de son air delibere : — Eh bien ! je ne vois pas que 
cette grenouille ait rien de mieux qu'une autre. 

" Smiley se gratta longtemps la tete, les yeux fixes sur Daniel, jusqu'a ce qu'enfin il dit : — Je me 
demande comment diable il se fait que cette bete ait refuse.. .Est-ce qu'elle aurait quelque chose?.. 
On croirait qu'elle est enflee. 

" II empoigne Daniel par la peau du cou, le souleve et dit : — Le loup me croque, s'il ne pese pas 
cinq livres. 

" II le retourne, et le malheureux crache deux poignees de plomb. Quand Smiley reconnut cc 



THE JUMPING FROG. 39 



qui en etait, il fut comme fou. Vous le voyez d'ici poser sa grenouille par terre et courir apres cet 
indrvidu, mais il ne le rattrapa jamais, et. . . 



[Translation of the above back from the French]. 

THE FROG JUMPING OF THE COUNTY OF CALAVERAS. 

It there was one time here an individual known under the name of Jim Smiley: 
it was in the winter of '49, possibly well at the spring of '50, I no me recollect not 
exactly. This which me makes to believe that it was the one or the other, it is that 
I shall remember that the grand flume is not achieved when he arrives at the camp 
for the first time, but of all sides he was the man the most fond of to bet which one 
have seen, betting upon all that which is presented, when he could find an adversary; 
and when he not of it could not, he passed to the side opposed. All that which 
convenienced to the the other, to him convenienced also; seeing that he had a bet, 
Smiley was satisfied. And he had a chance! a chance even worthless: nearly 
always he gained. It must to say that he was always near to himself expose, but 
one no could mention the least thing without that this gaillard offered to bet the 
bottom, no matter what, and to take the side that one him would, as I you it said 
all at the hour (tout a l'heure). If it there was of races, you him find rich or ruined 
at the end; if it there is a combat of dogs, he bring his bet; he himself laid always 
for a combat of cats, for a combat of cocks ; — by-blue ! if you have see two birds 
upon a fence, he you should have offered of to bet which of those birds shall fly the 
first; and if there is mceti?ig at the camp (meeting au camp) he comes to bet regu- 
larly for the cure Walker, which he judged to be the best predicator of the neigh- 
borhood (predicateur des environs) and which he was in effect, and a brave man. 
He would encounter a bug of wood in the road, whom he will bet upon the time 
which he shall take to go where she would go — and if you him have take at the 
word, he will follow the bug as far as Mexique, without himself caring to go so far; 
neither of the time which he there lost. One time the woman of the cure* 
Walker is very sick during long time, it seemed that one not her saved not; but 
one morning the cure arrives, and Smiley him demanded how she goes, and he said 
that she is well better, grace to the infinite misery (lui demande comment elle va, 
et il dit qu'elle est bien mieux, grace a Tinfinie misericorde) so much better that 



4© MARK TWAIN* S SKETCHES. 



with the benediction of the Providence she herself of it would pull out (elle s'en 
tirerait) ; and behold that without there thinking Smiley responds : " Well, I gage 
two-and-half that she will die all of same." 

This Smiley had an animal which the boys called the nag of the quarter of hour, 
but solely for pleasantry, you comprehend, because, well understand, she^was more 
fast as that ! [Now why that exclamation? — M. T.] And it was custom of to gain 
of the silver with this beast, notwithstanding she was poussive, cornarde, always 
taken of asthma, of colics or of consumption, or something of approaching. One 
him would give two or three hundred yards at the departure, then one him passed 
without pain; but never at the last she not fail of herself echaurTer, of herself 
exasperate, and she arrives herself ecartant, se defendant, her legs greles in the air 
before the obstacles, sometimes them elevating and making with this more of dust 
than any horse, more of noise above with his eternumens and reniflemens — crac! 
she arrives then always first by one head, as just as one can it measure. And he 
had a small bull dog (boule dogue !) who, to him see, no value, not a cent; one 
would believe that to bet against him it was to steal, so much he was ordinary; but 
as soon as the game made, she becomes another dog. Her jaw inferior commence 
to project like a deck of before, his teeth themselves discover brilliant like some 
furnaces, and a dog could him tackle (le taquiner), him excite, him murder (le 
mordre), him throw two or three times over his shoulder, Andre Jackson — this was 
the name of the dog — Andre Jackson takes that tranquilly, as if he not himself 
was never expecting other thing, and when the bets were doubled and redoubled 
against him, he you sieze the other dog just at the articulation of the leg of behind, 
and he not it leave more, not that he it masticate, you conceive, but he himself 
there shall be holding during until that one throws the sponge in the air, must he 
wait a year. Smiley gained always with this beast-la; unhappily they have finished 
by elevating a dog who no had not of feet of behind, because one them had sawed; 
and when things were at the point that he would, and that he came to. himself throw 
upon his morsel favorite, the poor dog comprehended in an instant that he himself 
was deceived in him, and that the other dog him had. You no have never see 
person having the air more penaud and more discouraged; he not made no effort 
to gain the combat, and was rudely shucked. 



THE JUMPING FROG. 41 



Eh bien ! this Smiley nourished some terriers a rats, and some cocks of combat, 
and some cats, and all sort of things; and with his rage of betting one no had more 
of repose. He trapped one day a frog and him imported with him (et l'emporta 
chez lui) saying that he pretended to make his education. You me believe if you 
will, but during three months he not has nothing done but to him apprehend to 
jump (apprendre a sauter) in a court retired of her mansion (de sa maison). And 
I you respond that he have succeeded. He him gives a small blow by behind, and 
the instant after you shall see the frog turn in the air like a grease-biscuit, make 
one summersault, sometimes two, when she was well started, and re-fall upon his 
feet like a cat. He him had accomplished in the art of to gobble the flies (gober 
des mouches), and him there exercised continually — so well that a fly at the most 
far that she appeared was a fly lost. Smiley had custom to say that all which 
lacked to a frog it was the education, but with the education she could do nearly 
all — and I him believe. Tenez, I him have seen pose Daniel Webster there upon 
this plank — Daniel Webster was the name of the frog — and to him sing, "Some 
flies, Daniel, some flies! " — in a flash of the eye Daniel had bounded and seized a 
fly here upon the counter, then jumped anew at the earth, where he rested truly to 
himself scratch the head with his behind-foot, as if he no had not the least idea of 
his superiority. Never you not have seen frog as modest, as natural, sweet as she 
was. And when he himself agitated to jump purely and simply upon plain earth, 
she does more ground in one jump than any beast of his species than you can know. 
To jump plain — this was his strong. When he himself agitated for that, Smiley 
multiplied the bets upon her as long as there to him remained a red. It must to 
know, Smiley was monstrously proud of his frog, and he of it was right, for some 
men who were traveled, who had all seen, said that they to him would be injurious 
to him compare to another frog. Smiley guarded Daniel in a little box latticed 
which he carried bytimes to the village for some bet. 

One day an individual stranger at the camp him arrested with his box and him 
said: 

"What is this that you have then shut up there within ?" 

Smiley said, with an air indifferent : 

"That could be a paroquet, or a syringe (ou un serin), but this no is nothing of 
such, it not is but a frog." 



42 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

The individual it took, it regarded with care, it turned from one side and from 
the other, then he said : 

" Tiens ! in effect ! — At what is she good ? " 

'* My God ! " respond Smiley, always with an air disengaged, " she is good for 
one thing, to my notice, (a mon avis), she can batter in jumping (elle peut batter 
en sautant) all frogs of the county of Calaveras." 

The individual re-took the box, it examined of new longly, and it rendered to 
Smiley in saying with an air deliberate: 

" Eh bien ! I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than each frog." 
(Je ne vois pas que cette grenouille ait rien de mieux qu'aucune grenouille). [If 
that isn't grammar gone to seed, then I count myself no judge. — M. T.] 

" Possible that you not it saw not," said Smiley, " possible that you — you com- 
prehend frogs; possible that you not you there comprehend nothing; possible that 
you had of the experience, and possible that you not be but an amateur. Of all 
manner, (De toute maniere) I bet forty dollars that she batter in jumping no matter 
which frog of the county of Calaveras." 

The individual reflected a second, and said like sad: 

"I not am but a stranger here, I no have not a frog; but if I of it had one, I 
would embrace the bet." 

" Strong well ! " respond Smiley ; " nothing of more facility. If you will hold my 
box a minute, I go you to search a frog (j* irai vous chercher)." 

Behold, then, the individual, who guards the box, who puts his forty dollars upon 
those of Smiley, and who attends, (et qui attend). He attended enough longtimes, 
reflecting all solely. And figure you that he takes Daniel, him opens the mouth by 
force and with a tea-spoon him fills with shot of the hunt, even him fills just to the 
chin, then he him puts by the earth. Smiley during these times was at slopping in 
a swamp. Finally he trapped (attrape) a frog, him carried to that individual, and 
said : 

" Now if you be ready, put him all against Daniel, with their before-feet upon the 
same line, and I give the signal " — then he added : " One, two, three, — advance ! " 

Him and the individual touched their frogs by behind, and the frog new put to 
jump smartly, but Daniel himself lifted ponderously, exalted the shoulders thus, 



THE JUMPING FROG. 43 



like a Frenchman — to what good? he not could budge, he is planted solid like a 
church, he not advance no more than if one him had put at the anchor. 

Smiley was surprised and disgusted, but he not himself doubted not of the turn 
being intended (mais il ne se doutait pas du tour, bien entendu). The individual 
empocketed the silver, himself with it went, and of it himself in going is it that he 
no gives not a jerk of thumb over the shoulder — like that — at the poor Daniel, in 
saying with his air deliberate — (L' individu empoche l'argent, s'en va et en s'en 
allant est ce qu'il ne donne pas un coup de pouce par-dessus l'epaule, comme ca, 
au pauvre Daniel, endisant de son air delibere) : 

" Eh bien ! I no see not that that frog has nothing of better than another." 

Smiley himself scratched longtimes the head, the eyes fixed upon Daniel, until 
that which at last he said : 

" I me demand how the devil it makes itself that this beast has refused. Is it 
that she had something? One would believe that she is stuffed." 

He grasped Daniel by the skin of the neck, him lifted and said : 

" The wolf me bite if he no weigh not five pounds." 

He him reversed and the unhappy belched two handfuls of shot (et le mal- 
hereus, etc). — When Smiley recognized how it was, he was like mad. He deposited 
his frog by the earth and ran after that individual, but he not him caught never. 

Such is the Jumping Frog, to the distorted French eye. I claim that I never put 
together such an odious mixture of bad grammar and delirium tremens in my life. 
And what has a poor foreigner like me done, to be abused and misrepresented like 
this? When I say, "Well, I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n 
any other frog," is it kind, is it just, for this Frenchman to try to make it appear 
that I said, " Eh bien ! I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than each 
frog? " I have no heart to write more. I never felt so abo-it anything before 

Hartford, March, 1875. 



'//$& 










IfSmLxiSs 












J****^. The editor of the Memphis Avalanche swoops 
thus mildly down upon a correspondent who posted 
him as a Radical : — "While he was writing the first 
word, the middle, dotting his i's, crossing his t's, 
and punching his period, he knew he was concoct- 
ing a sentence that was saturated with infamy and 
reeking with falsehood." — Exchange. 

WAS told by the physician that a 
Southern climate would improve my 
health, and so I went down to Tennes- 
see, and got a berth on the Morning Glory 
and Johnson Comity War- Whoop as asso- 
ciate editor. When I went on duty I 
found, the chief editor sitting tilted back 
in a three-legged chair with his feet on a pine table. There was another pine 
table in the room and another afflicted chair, and both were half buried under 

44 



I 



JOURNALISM IN TENNESSEE. . 45 

newspapers and scraps and, sheets of manuscript. There was a wooden box of 
sand, sprinkled with cigar stubs and " old soldiers," and a stove with a door hang- 
ing by its upper hinge. The chief editor had a long-tailed black cloth frock coat 
on, and white linen pants. His boots were small and neatly blacked. He wore a 
ruffled shirt, a large seal ring, a standing collar of obsolete pattern, and a check- 
ered neckerchief with the ends hanging down. Date of costume about 1848. He 
was smoking a cigar, and trying to think of a word, and in pawing his hair he had 
rumpled his locks a good deal. He was scowling fearfully, and I judged that he 
was concocting a particularly knotty editorial. He told me to take the exchanges 
and skim through them and write up the " Spirit of the Tennessee Press," condensing 
into the article all of their contents that seemed of interest. 
I wrote as follows : — 

" SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS. 

" The editors of the Semi- Weekly- Earthquake evidently labor under a misapprehension with 
regard to the Ballyhack railroad. It is not the object of the company to leave Buzzardville off 
to one side. On the contrary, they consider it one of the most important points along the line, and 
consequently can have no desire to slight it. The gentlemen of the Earthquake will, of course, take 
pleasure in making the correction. 

"John W. Blossom, Esq., the able editor of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of Free- 
dom, arrived in the city yesterday. He is stopping at the Van Buren House. 

"We observe that our contemporary of the Mud Springs Morning Howl\\z.% fallen into the error 
of supposing that the election of Van Werter is not an established fact, but he will have discovered 
his mistake before this reminder reaches him, no doubt. He was doubtless misled by incomplete 
election returns. 

" It is pleasant to note that the city of Blathersville is endeavoring to contract with some New York 
gentlemen to pave its well-nigh impassable streets with the Nicholson pavement. The Daily Hurrah 
urges the measure with ability, and seems confident of ultimate success." 

I passed my manuscript over to the chief editor for acceptance, alteration, or 
destruction. He glanced at it and his face clouded. He ran his eye down the 
pages, and his countenance grew portentous. It was easy to see that something 
was wrong. Presently he sprang up and said — 

"Thunder and lightning! Do you suppose I am going to speak of those cattle 
that way? Do you suppose my subscribers are going to stand such gruel as that? 
Give me the pen !" 



46 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

I never saw a pen scrape and scratch its way so viciously, or plough through 
another man's verbs and adjectives so relentlessly. While he was in the midst of 
his work, somebody shot at him through the open window, and marred the sym- 
metry of my ear. 

"Ah," said he, "that is that scoundrel Smith, of the Moral Volcano — he was due 
yesterday." And he snatched a navy revolver from his belt and fired. Smith 
dropped, shot in the thigh. The shot spoiled Smith's aim, who was just taking a 
second chance, and he crippled a stranger. It was me. Merely a finger shot off. 

Then the chief editor went on with his erasures and interlineations. Just as he 
finished them a hand-grenade came down the stove pipe, and the explosion shivered 
the stove into a thousand fragments. However, it did no further damage, except 
that a vagrant piece knocked a couple of my teeth out. 

" That stove is utterly ruined," said the chief editor. 

I said I believed it was. 

" Well, no matter — don't want it this kind of weather. I know the man that did 
it. I'll get him. Now, here is the way this stuff ought to be written." 

I took the manuscript. It was scarred with erasures and interlineations till its 
mother wouldn't have known it if it had had one. It now read as follows: — 

" SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS. 

" The inveterate liars of the Semi- Weekly Earthquake are evidently endeavoring to palm off 
upon a noble and chivalrous people another of their vile and brutal falsehoods with regard 
to that most glorious conception of the nineteenth century, the Ballyhack railroad. The 
idea that Buzzardville was to be left oft at one side originated in their own fulsome brains— or 
rather in the settlings which they regard as brains. They had better swallow this lie if they want 
to save their abandoned reptile carcasses the cowhiding they so richly deserve. 

" That ass, Blossom, of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of Freedom, is down here 
again sponging at the Van Buren. 

" We observe that the besotted blackguard of the Mud Spring Morning Howl is giving out, with 
his usual propensity for lying, that Van Werter is not elected. The heaven-born mission of journal- 
ism is to disseminate truth ; to eradicate error ; to educate, refine, and elevate the tone of public 
morals and manners, and make all men more gentle, more virtuous, more charitable, and in all ways 
better, and holier, and happier ; and yet this black-hearted scoundrel degrades his great office per- 
sistently to the dissemination of falsehood, calumny, vituperation, and vulgarity. 

" Blathersville wants a Nicholson pavement — it wants a jail and a poorhouse more. The idea 
of a pavement in a one horse town composed of two gin mills, a blacksmith's shop, and that mustard- 



JOURNALISM IN TENNESSEE. 47 

plaster of a newspaper, the Daily Hurrah! The crawling insect, Buckner, who edits the Hurrah, is 
braying about this business with his customary imbecility, and imagining that he is talking sense." 

" Now that is the way to write — peppery and to the point. Mush-and-milk jour- 
nalism gives me the fan-tods." 

About this time a brick came through the window with a splintering crash, and 
gave me a considerable of a jolt in the back. I moved out of range — I began to 
feel in the way. 

The chief said, " That was the Colonel, likely. I've been expecting him for two 
days. He will be up, now, right away." 

He was correct. The Colonel appeared in the door a moment afterward with a 
dragoon revolver in his hand. 

He said, "Sir, have I the honor of addressing the poltroon who edits this mangy 
sheet?" 

" You have. Be seated, sir. Be careful of the chair, one of its legs is gone. I 
believe I have the honor of addressing the putrid liar, Col. Blatherskite Tecumseh ?" 

"Right, sir. I have a little account to settle with you. If you are at leisure we 
will begin." 

" I have an article on the ' Encouraging Progress of Moral and Intellectual 
Development in America' to finish, but there is no hurry. Begin." 

Both pistols rang out their fierce clamor at the same instant. The chief lost a 
lock of his hair, and the Colonel's bullet ended its career in the fleshy part of my 
thigh. The Colonel's left shoulder was clipped a little. They fired again. Both 
missed their men this time, but I got my share, a shot in the arm. At the third 
fire both gentleman were wounded slightly, and I had a knuckle chipped. I then 
said, I believed I would go out and take a walk, as this was a private matter, and 
I had a delicacy about participating in it further. But both gentlemen begged me 
to keep my seat, and assured me that I was not in the way. 

They then talked about the elections and the crops while they reloaded, and I 
fell to tying up my wounds. But presently they opened fire again with animation, 
and every shot took effect — but it is proper to remark that five out of the six fell to 
my share. The sixth one mortally wounded the Colonel, who remarked, with fine 
humor, that he would have to say good morning now, as he had business up town. 
He then inquired the way to the undertaker's and left. 



48 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

The chief turned to me and said, " I am expecting company to dinner, and shall 
have to get ready. It will be a favor to me if you will read proof and attend to 
the customers." 

I winced a little at the idea of attending to the customers, but I was too bewil- 
dered by the fusilade that was still ringing in my ears to think of anything to say. 

He continued, " Jones will be here at 3 — cowhide him. Gillespie will call 
earlier, perhaps — throw him out of the window. Ferguson will be along about 4 — 
kill him. That is all for to-day, I believe. If you have any odd time, you may 
write a blistering article on the police — give the Chief Inspector rats. The cow- 
hides are under the table ; weapons in the drawer — ammunition there in the corner 
— lint and bandages up there in the pigeon-holes. In case of accident, go to Lancet, 
the surgeon, down-stairs. He advertises — we take it out in trade." 

He was gone. I shuddered. At the end of the next three hours I had been 
through perils so awful that all peace of mind and all cheerfulness were gone from 
me. Gillespie had called and thrown me out of the window. Jones arrived 
promptly, and when I got ready to do the cowhiding he took the job off my hands. 
In an encounter with a stranger, not in the bill of fare, I had lost my scalp. 
Another stranger, by the name of Thompson, left me a mere wreck and ruin of 
chaotic rags. And at last, at bay in the corner, and beset by an infuriated mob of 
editors, blacklegs, politicians, and desperadoes, who raved and swore and flourished 
their weapons about my head till the air shimmered with glancing flashes of steel, 
I was in the act of resigning my berth on the paper when the chief arrived, and 
with him a rabble of charmed and enthusiastic friends. Then ensued a scene of 
riot and carnage such as no human pen, or steel one either, could describe. People 
were shot, probed, dismembered, blown up, thrown out of the window. There was 
a brief tornado of murky blasphemy, with a confused and frantic war-dance glim- 
mering through it, and then all was over. In five minutes there was silence, and 
the gory chief and I sat alone and surveyed the sanguinary ruin that strewed the 
floor around us. 

He said, "You'll like this place when you get used to it." 

I said, " I'll have to get you to excuse me; I think maybe I might write to suit 
you after a while ; as soon as I had had some practice and learned the language 
I am confident I could. But, to speak the plain truth, that sort of energy of 



JOURNALISM TN TENNESSEE. 



49 




expression has its inconveniences, and a man is liable to interruption. You see 
that yourself.- Vigorous writing is calculated to elevate the public, no doubt, but, 
then I do not like to attract so much attention as it calls forth. I can't write with 
comfort when I am interrupted so much as I have been to-day. I like this berth 
well enough, but I don't like to be left here to wait om the customers. The 
experiences are novel, I grant you, and entertaining too, after a fashion, but they 
are not judiciously distributed. A gentleman shoots at you through the window 
and cripples me; a bomb-shell comes down the stove-pipe for your gratification 
and sends the stove-door down my throat ; a friend drops in to swap compliments 
with you, and freckles me with bullet-holes till my skin won't hold my principles; 
you go to dinner, and Jones comes with his cowhide, Gillespie throws me out of 



5° 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



the window, Thompson tears all my clothes off, and an entire stranger takes my 
scalp with the easy freedom of an old acquaintance ; and in less than five minutes 
all the blackguards in the country arrive in their war-paint, and proceed to scare 
the rest of me to death with their tomahawks. Take it altogether, I never had 
such a spirited time in all my life as I have had to-day. No ; I like you, and I like 
your calm unruffled way of explaining things to the customers, but you see I am 
not used to it. The Southern heart is too impulsive ; Southern hospitality is too 
lavish with the stranger. The paragraphs which I have written to-day, and into 
whose cold sentences your masterly hand has infused the fervent spirit of Tennes- 
sean journalism, will wake up another nest of hornets. All that mob of editors 
will come — and they will come hungry, too, and want somebody for breakfast. I 
shall have to bid you adieu. I decline to be present at these festivities. I came 
South for my health, I will go back on the same errand, and suddenly. Tennesseean 
journalism is too stirring for me." 

After which we parted with mutual regret, and I took apartments at the hospital. 





ONCE there was a bad little boy 
whose name was Jim — though, 
if you will notice, you will find 
that bad little boys are nearly always 
called James in your Sunday-school 
books. It was strange, but still it 
was true that this one was called Jim. 
He didn't have any sick mother 
either — a sick mother who was pious 
and had the consumption, and would 
be glad to lie down in the grave and 
be at rest but for the strong love she 
bore her boy, and the anxiety she 
felt that the world might be harsh and cold towards him when she was gone. 
Most bad boys in the Sunday-books are named James, and have sick mothers, 

5i 



5 2 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



who teach them to say, " Now, I lay me down," etc., and sing them to sleep 
with sweet, plaintive voices, and then kiss them good-night, and kneel down by 
the bedside and weep. But it was different with this fellow. He was named 
Jim, and there wasn't anything the matter with his mother — no consumption, 
nor anything of that kind. She was rather stout than otherwise, and she was 
not pious ; moreover, she was not anxious on Jim's account. She said if he were 
to break his neck it wouldn't be much loss. She always spanked Jim to sleep, 
and she never kissed him good-night ; on the contrary, she boxed his ears when 



she was ready to 
Once this little 
key of the pantry, 
there and helped 
jam, and filled up 
so that his mother 
the difference ; but 
ble feeling didn't 
and something 
whisper to him, 
©bey my mother? 
this? Where do 
who gobble up 
mother's jam?" 
kneel down all 
never to be wicked 




leave him. 
bad boy stole the 
and slipped in 
himself to some 
the vessel with tar, 
would never know 
all at once a terri- 
come over him, 
didn't seem to 
" Is it right to dis- 
Isn't it sinful to do 
bad little boys go 
their good kind 
and then he didn't 
alone and promise 
any more, and rise 



up with a light, happy heart, and go and tell his mother all about it, and beg 
her forgiveness, and be blessed by her with tears of pride and thankfulness in 
her eyes. No ; that is the way with all other bad boys in the books ; but it happened 
otherwise with this Jim, strangely enough. He ate that jam, and said it was 
bully, in his sinful, vulgar way; and he put in the tar, and said that was bully 
also, and laughed, and observed "that the old woman would get up and snort" 
when she found it out; and when she did find it out, he denied knowing any- 
thing about it, and she whipped him severely, and he did the crying himself. 



STORY OF A BAD LITTLE BOY. 53 



Everything about this boy was curious — everything turned out differently with 
him from the way it does to the bad Jameses in the books. 

Once he climbed up in Farmer Acorn's apple-tree to steal apples, and the 
limb didn't break, and he didn't fall and break his arm, and get torn by the 
farmer's great dog, and then languish on a sick bed for weeks, and repent and 
become good. Oh! no; he stole as many apples as he wanted and came down 
all right ; and he was all ready for the dog too, and knocked him endways with 
a brick when he came to tear him. It was very strange — nothing like it ever 
happened in those mild little books with marbled backs, and with pictures in 
them of men with swallow-tailed coats and bell-crowned hats, and pantaloons 
that are short in the legs, and women with the waists of their dresses under their 
arms, and no hoops on. Nothing like it in any of the Sunday-school books. 

Once he stole the teacher's pen-knife, and, when he was afraid it would be 
found out and he would get whipped, he slipped it into George Wilson's cap — 
poor Widow Wilson's son, the moral boy, the good little boy of the village, who 
always obeyed his mother, and never told an untruth, and was fond of his les- 
sons, and infatuated with Sunday-school. And when the knife dropped from 
the cap, and poor George hung his head and blushed, as if in conscious guilt, 
and the grieved teacher charged the theft upon him, and was just in the very 
act of bringing the switch down upon his trembling shoulders, a white-haired, 
improbable justice of the peace did not suddenly appear in their midst, and strike 
an attitude and say, " Spare this noble boy — there stands the cowering culprit! 
I was passing the school-door at recess, and unseen myself, I saw the theft com- 
mitted ! " And then Jim didn't get whaled, and the venerable justice didn't 
read the tearful school a homily, and take George by the hand and say such a boy 
deserved to be exalted, and then tell him to come and make his home with him, 
and sweep out the office, and make fires, and run errands, and chop wood, and 
study law, and help his wife do household labors, and have all the balance of 
the time to play, and get forty cents a month, and be happy. No ; it would 
have happened that way in the books, but it didn't happen that way to Jim. 
No meddling old clam of a justice dropped in to make trouble, and so the model 
boy George got thrashed, and Jim was glad of it because, you know, Jim hated 



54 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



moral boys. Jim said he was "down on them milksops." Such was the 
coarse language of this bad, neglected boy. 

But the strangest thing that ever happened to Jim was the time he went boat- 
ing on Sunday, and didn't get drowned, and that other time that he got caught 
out in the storm when he was fishing on Sunday, and didn't get struck by light- 
ning. Why, you might look, and look, all through the Sunday-school books 
from now till next Christmas, and you would never come across anything like 
this. Oh no ; you would find that all the bad boys who go boating on Sunday 

storms when they ) ^^^^^^^fe^^M® M$\^^^$N^ are fishing on Sun- 
around the cupboard after essence of peppermint, and didn't make a mistake and 
drink aqua fortis. He stole his father's gun and went hunting on the Sabbath, 
and didn't shoot three or four of his fingers off. He struck his little sister on 
the temple with his fist when he was angry, and she didn't linger in pain through 
long summer days, and die with sweet words of forgiveness upon her lips that 
redoubled the anguish of his breaking heart. No ; she got over it. He ran off 
and went to sea at last, and didn't come back and find himself sad and alone in 
the world, his loved ones sleeping in the quiet churchyard, and the vine-embow* 



STORY OF A BAD LITTLE BOY. 



55 



ered home of his boyhood tumbled down and gone to decay. Ah ! no; he came 
home as drunk as a piper, and got into the station-house the Grst thing. 

And he grew up and married, and raised a large family, and brained them all 
with an axe one night, and got wealthy by all manner of cheating and rascality ; 
and now he is the infernalest wickedest scoundrel in his native village, and is 
universally respected, and belongs to the Legislature. 

So you see there never was a bad James in the Sunday-school books that had 
such a streak of luck as this sinful Jim with the charmed life. 





ONCE there was a good little 
boy by the name of Jacob 
Blivens. He always obeyed 
his parents, no matter how absurd 
and unreasonable their demands 
were; and he always learned his 
book, and never was late at Sabbath- 
school. He would not play hookey, 
even when his sober judgment told 
him it was the most profitable thing 
he could do. None of the other 
boys could ever make that boy out, 
he acted so strangely. He wouldn't 
lie, no matter how convenient it was. He just said it was wrong to lie, and 
that was sufficient for him. And he w T as so honest that he was simply 

56 



STORY OF A GOOD LITTLE BOY. 57 



ridiculous. The curious ways that that Jacob had, surpassed everything. He 
wouldn't play marbles on Sunday, he wouldn't rob birds' nests, he wouldn't give 
hot pennies to organ-grinders' monkeys; he didn't seem to take any interest in 
any kind of rational amusement. So the other boys used to try to reason it out 
and come to an understanding of him, but they couldn't arrive at any satisfactory 
conclusion. As I said before, they could only figure out a sort of vague idea that 
he was " afflicted," and so they took him under their protection, and never allowed 
any harm to come to him. 

This good little boy read all the Sunday-school books; they were his greatest 
delight. This was the whole secret of it. He believed in the good little boys 
they put in the Sunday-school books ; he had every confidence in them. He 
longed to come across one of them alive, once; but he never did. They all died 
before his time, maybe. Whenever he read about a particularly good one he 
turned over quickly to the end to see what became of him, because he wanted to 
travel thousands of miles and gaze on him; but it wasn't any use; that good 
little boy always died in the last chapter, and there was a picture of the funeral, 
with all his relations and the Sunday-school children standing around the grave 
in pantaloons that were too short, and bonnets that were too large, and everybody 
crying into handkerchief's that had as much as a yard and a half of stuff in them. 
He was always headed off in this way. He never could see one of those good 
little boys on account of his always dying in the last chapter. 

Jacob had a noble ambition to be put in a Sunday-school book. He wanted 
to be put in, with pictures representing him gloriously declining to lie to his 
mother, and her weeping for joy about it ; and pictures representing him standing 
on the doorstep giving a penny to a poor beggar-woman with six children, and 
telling her to spend it freely, but not to be extravagant, because extravagance is 
a sin; and pictures of him magnanimously refusing to tell on the bad boy who 
always lay in wait for him around the corner as he came from school, and welted 
him over the head with a lath, and then chased him home, saying, " Hi ! hi ! " as 
he proceeded. That was the ambition of young Jacob Blivens. He wished to 
be put in a Sunday-school book. It made him feel a little uncomfortable some- 
times when he reflected that the good little boys always died. He loved to live, 



58 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



you know, and this was the most unpleasant feature about being a Sunday-school- 
book boy. He knew it was not healthy to be good. He knew it was more fatal 
than consumption to be so supernaturally good as the boys in the books were; 
he knew that none of them had ever been able to stand it long, and it pained him to 
think that if they put him in a book he wouldn't ever see it, or even if they did 
get the book out before he died it wouldn't be popular without any picture of 
his funeral in the back part of it. It couldn't be much of a Sunday-school book 
that couldn't tell about the advice he gave to the community when he was dying. 

pened just the I "^^^^^^^^^^^- ' 1 other way. When 

he found Jim Blake stealing apples, and went under the tree to read to him 
about the bad little boy who fell out of a neighbor's apple-tree and broke his 
arm, Jim fell out of the tree too, but he fell on him, and broke his arm, and Jim 
wasn't hurt at all. Jacob couldn't understand that. There wasn't anything in 
the books like it. 

And once, when some bad boys pushed a blind man over in the mud, and 
Jacob ran to help him up and receive his blessing, the blind man did not give 
him any blessing at all, but whacked him over the head with his stick and said 



STORY OF A GOOD LITTLE BOY. 59 

he would like to catch him shoving him again, and then pretending to help him 
up. This was not in accordance with any of the books. Jacob looked them all 
over to see. 

One thing that Jacob wanted to do was to find a lame dog that hadn't any- 
place to stay, and was hungry and persecuted, and bring him home and pet him 
and have that dog's imperishable gratitude. And at last he found one and was 
happy; and he brought him home and fed him, but when he was going to pet 
him the dog flew at him and tore all the clothes off him except those that were 
in front, and made a spectacle of him that was astonishing. He examined 
authorities, but he could not understand the matter. It was of the same breed 
of dogs that was in the books, but it acted very differently. Whatever this boy 
did he got into trouble. The very things the boys in the books got rewarded 
for turned out to be about the most unprofitable things he could invest in. 

Once, when he was on his way to Sunday-school, he saw some bad boys 
starting off pleasuring in a sail-boat. He was filled with consternation, because 
he knew from his reading that boys who went sailing on Sunday invariably got 
drowned. So he ran out on a raft to warn them, but a log turned with him and 
slid him into the river. A man got him out pretty soon, and the doctor pumped 
the water out of him, and gave him a fresh start with his bellows, but he caught 
cold and lay sick a-bed nine weeks. But the most unaccountable thing about it 
was that the bad boys in the boat had a good time all day, and then reached 
home alive and well in the most surprising manner. Jacob Blivens said there 
was nothing like these things in the books. He was perfectly dumbfounded. 

When he got well he w T as a little discouraged, but he resolved to keep on 
trying anyhow. He knew that so far his experiences wouldn't do to go in a 
book, but he hadn't yet reached the allotted term of life for good little boys, and 
he hoped to be able to make a record yet if he could hold on till his time was 
fully up. If .everything else failed he had his dying speech to fall back on. 

He examined his authorities, and found that it was now time for him to go to 
sea as a cabin-boy. He called on a ship captain and made his application, and 
when the captain asked for his recommendations he proudly drew out a tract 
and pointed to the words, " To Jacob Blivens, from his affectionate teacher." But 



6o 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



the captain was a coarse, vulgar man, and he said, " Oh, that be blowed ! that 
wasn't any proof that he knew how to wash dishes or handle a slush-bucket, and 
he guessed he didn't want him." This was altogether the most extraordinary- 
thing that ever happened to Jacob in all his life. A compliment from a teacher, 
on a tract, had never failed to move the tenderest emotions of ship captains, and 
open the way to all offices of honor and profit in their gift — it never had in any 
book that ever he had read. He could hardly believe his senses. 

This boy always had a hard time of it. Nothing ever came out according to 



the authorities 
one day, when he 
ing up bad little 
he found a lot of 
iron foundry fix- 
joke on fourteen 
which they had 
long procession, 
to ornament with 
erine cans made 
Jacob's heart was 
down on one of 
never minded 
was before him)^ 
o f the foremost 
and turned his 
upon wicked Tom 




with him. At last, 
was around hunt- 
boys to admonish, 
them in the old 
ing up a little 
or fifteen dogs, 
tied together i n 
and were going 
empty nitro-glyc- 
fast to their tails, 
touched. He sat 
those cans (for he 
grease when duty 
and he took hold 
dog by the collar, 
reproving eye 
Jones. But just 



at that moment Alderman Mc Welter, full of wrath, stepped in. All the bad 
boys ran away, but Jacob Blivens rose in conscious innocence and began one of 
those stately little Sunday-school-book speeches which always commence with 
"Oh, sir!" in dead opposition to the fact that no boy, good or bad, ever starts 
a remark with " Oh, sir." But the alderman never waited to hear the rest. He 
took Jacob Blivens by the ear and turned him around, and hit him a whack in 
the rear with the flat of his hand ; and in an instant that good little boy shot out 



STORY OF A GOOD LITTLE BOY. 6 1 

through the roof and soared away towards the sun, with the fragments of those 
fifteen dogs stringing after him like the tail of a kite. And there wasn't a 
sign of that alderman or that old iron foundry left on the face of the earth ; and, 
as for young Jacob Blivens, he never got a chance to make his last dying speech 
after all his trouble fixing it up, unless he made it to the birds ; because, although 
the bulk of him came down all right in a tree-top in an adjoining county, the 
rest of him was apportioned around among four townships, and so they had to 
hold five inquests on him to find out whether he was dead or not, and how it 
occurred. You never saw a boy scattered so. * 

Thus perished the good little boy who did the best he could, but didn't come 
out according to the books. Every boy who ever did as he did prospered except 
him. His case is truly remarkable. It will probably never be accounted for. 

* This glycerine catastrophe is borrowed from a floating newspaper item, whose author's name I 
would give if I knew it. — [M. T.J 



A COUPLE OF POEMS BY TWAIN AND MOORE. 



THOSE EVENING BELLS. 



BY THOMAS MOORE. 



Those evening bells ! those evening bells ! 
How many a tale their music tells 
Of youth, and home, and that sweet time 
When last I heard their soothing chime. 

Those joyous hours are passed away ; 
And many a heart that then was gay, 
Within the tomb now darkly dwells, 
And hears no more those evening bells, 

And so 'twill be when I am gone — 
That tuneful peal will still ring on ; 
While other bards shall walk these dells, 
And sing your praise, sweet evening bells. 



THOSE ANNUAL BILLS. 



BY MARK TWAIN. 



These annual bills ! these annual bills ! 
How many a song their discord trills 
Of "truck" consumed, enjoyed, forgot, 
Since I was skinned by last years lot ! 

Those joyous beans are passed away ; 
Those onions blithe, O where are they ! 
Once loved, lost, mourned — now vexing ILLS 
Your shades troop back in annual bills ! 

And so 'twill be when I'm aground— 
These yearly duns will still go round, 
While other bards, with frantic quills, 
Shall damn and damn these annual bills ! 
62 




things 
The 



IAGARA FALLS is a most enjoy- 
able place of resort. The hotels 
are excellent, and the prices not 
at all exorbitant. The opportunities for 
fishing are not surpassed in the country; 
in fact, they are not even equalled else- 
where. Because, in other localities, 
certain places in the streams are much 
better than others; but at Niagara one 
place is just as good as another, for the 
reason that the fish do not bite anywhere, 
and so there is no use in your walking 
five miles to fish, when you can depend 
on being just as unsuccessful nearer 
home. The advantages of this state of 
have never heretofore been properly placed before the public, 
weather is cool in summer, and the walks and drives are all pleasant and 

63 



64 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



none of them fatiguing. When you start out to " do " the Falls you first drive down 
about a mile, and pay a small sum for the privilege of looking down from a preci- 
pice into the narrowest part of the Niagara river. A railway " cut " through a hill 
would be as comely if it had the angry river tumbling and foaming through its 
bottom. You can descend a staircase here a hundred and fifty feet down, and 
stand at the edge of the water. After you have done it, you will wonder why you 
did it ; but you will then be too late. 

The guide will explain to you, in his blood-curdling way, how he saw the little 
steamer, Maid of the Afist, descend the fearful rapids — how first one paddle-box 
was out of sight behind the raging billows, and then the other, and at what point it 
was that her smokestack toppled overboard, and where her planking began to break 
and part asunder — and how she did finally live through the trip, after accomplish- 
ing the incredible feat of travelling seventeen miles in six minutes, or six miles in 
seventeen minutes, I have really forgotten which. But it was very extraordinary, 
anyhow. It is worth the price of admission to hear the guide tell the story nine 
times in succession to different parties, and never miss a word or alter a sentence 
or a gesture. 

Then you drive over the Suspension Bridge, and divide your misery between the 
chances of smashing down two hundred feet into the river below, and the chances 
of having the railway train overhead smashing down on to you. Either possibility 
is discomforting taken by itself, but mixed together, they amount in the aggregate 
to positive unhappiness. 

On the Canada side you drive along the chasm between long ranks of photogra- 
phers standing guard behind their cameras, ready to make an ostentatious frontis- 
piece of you and your decaying ambulance, and your solemn crate with a hide on 
it, which you are expected to regard in the light of a horse, and a diminished and 
unimportant background of sublime Niagara ; and a great many people have the 
incredible effrontery or the native depravity to aid and abet this sort of crime. 

Any day, in the hands of these photographers, you may see stately pictures of 
papa and mamma, Johnny and Bub and Sis, or a couple of country cousins, all 
smiling vacantly, and all disposed in studied and. uncomfortable attitudes in their 
carriage, and all looming up in their awe-inspiring imbecility before the snubbed 



NIAGARA. 



65 



and diminished presentment of that majestic presence whose ministering spirits 
are the rainbows, whose voice is the thunder, whose awful front is veiled in clouds, 
who was monarch here dead and forgotten ages before this hackful of small reptiles 
was deemed temporarily necessary to fill a crack in the world's unnoted myriads, 
and will still be monarch here ages and decades of ages after they shall have gath- 
ered themselves to their blood relations, the other worms, and been mingled with 
the unremembering dust. 

There is no actual harm in making Niagara a background whereon to display 




one's marvellous insignificance in a good strong light, but it requires a sort of 
superhuman self-complacency to enable one to do it. 

When you have examined the stupendous Horseshoe Fall till you are satisfied 
you cannot improve on it, you return to America by the new Suspension Bridge, 
and follow up the bank to where they exhibit the Cave of the Winds. 

Here I followed instructions, and divested myself of all my clothing, and put 

on a waterproof jacket and overalls. This costume is picturesque, but not beautiful. 

A guide, similarly dressed, led the way down a flight of winding stairs, which 

wound and wound, and still kept on winding long after the thing ceased to be ft 

5 



66 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



novelty, and then terminated long before it 
had begun to be a pleasure. We were then 
well down under the precipice, but still consid- 
erably above the level of the river. 

We now began to creep along flimsy bridges 
of a single plank, our persons shielded from 
destruction by a crazy wooden railing, to which 
I clung with both hands — not because I was 
afraid, but because I wanted to. Presently the 
descent became steeper, and the bridge flimsier, 
and sprays from the American Tall began to 
rain down on us in fast-increasing sheets that 
soon became blinding, and after that our pro- 
gress was mostly in the nature of groping. 
Now a furious wind began to rush out from 
behind the waterfall, which seemed determined 
to sweep us from the bridge, and scatter us on 
the rocks and among the torrents below. I 
remarked that I wanted to go home ; but it was 
too late. We were almost under the monstrous 
wall of water thundering down from above, and 
speech was in vain in the midst of such a 
pitiless crash of sound. 

In another moment the guide disappeared 
behind the deluge, and bewildered by the 
thunder, driven helplessly by the wind, and 
smitten by the arrowy tempest of rain, I fol- 
lowed. All was darkness. Such a mad storm- 
ing, roaring, and bellowing of warring wind and 
water never crazed my ears before. I bent my 
head, and seemed to receive the Atlantic on 
my back, i he world seemed going to destruction. I could not see anything, the 




NIAGARA. 67 



flood poured down so savagely. I raised my head, with open mouth, and the most 
of the American cataract went down my throat. If I had sprung a leak now, I 
had been lost. And at this moment I discovered that the bridge had ceased, and 
we must trust for a foothold to the slippery and precipitous rocks. I never was so 
scared before and survived it. But we got through at last, and emerged into the 
open day, where we could stand in front of the laced and frothy and seething world 
of descending water, and look at it. When I saw how much of it there was, and 
how fearfully in earnest it was, I was sorry I had gone behind it. 

The noble Red Man has always been a friend and darling of mine. I love to 
read about him in tales and legends and romances. I love to read of his inspired 
sagacity, and his love of the wild free life of mountain and forest, and his general 
nobility of character, and his stately metaphorical manner of speech, and his 
chivalrous love for the dusky maiden, and the picturesque pomp of his dress and 
accoutrements. Especially the picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements. 
When I found the shops at Niagara Falls full of dainty Indian bead-work, and 
stunning moccasins, and equally stunning toy figures representing human beings who 
carried their weapons in holes bored through their arms and bodies, and had feet 
shaped like a pie, I was filled with emotion. I knew that now, at last, I was going 
to come face to face with the noble Red Man. 

A lady clerk in a shop told me, indeed, that all her grand array of curiosities 
were made by the Indians, and that they were plenty about the Falls, and that they 
were friendly, and it would not be dangerous to speak to them. And sure enough, 
as I approached the bridge leading over to Luna Island, I came upon a noble Son 
of the Forest sitting under a tree, diligently at work on a bead reticule. He wore 
a slouch hat and brogans, and had a short black pipe in his mouth. Thus does 
the baneful contact with our effeminate civilization dilute the picturesque pomp 
which is so natural to the Indian when far removed from us in his native haunts. 
I addressed the relic as follows : — 

" Is the Wawhoo-Wang-Wang of the Whack-a-Whack happy ? Does the great 
Speckled Thunder sigh for the war path, or is his heart contented with dreaming 
of the dusky maiden, the Pride of the Forest ? Does the mighty Sachem yearn to 
drink the blood of his enemies, or is he satisfied to make bead reticules for the 



68 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 




n»^' 



pappooses of the paleface ? Speak, sublime relic of bygone grandeur — venerable 
ruin, speak!" 

The relic said — 

"An' is it mesilf, Dennis Hooligan, that ye'd be takin' for a dirty Injin, ye 
drawlin', lantern-jawed, spider-legged divil ! By the piper that played before 
Moses, I'll ate ye !" 

I went away from there. 

By and by, in the neighborhood of the Terrapin Tower, I came upon a gentle 
daughter of the aborigines in fringed and beaded buckskin moccasins and leggins, 
seated on a bench, with her pretty wares about her. She had just carved out a 
wooden chief that had a strong family resemblance to a clothes-pin, and was now 



NIAGARA. 



6 9 






boring a hole through his abdomen to put his bow through. I hesitated a moment, 
and then addressed her : 

" Is the heart of the forest maiden heavy ? Is the Laughing Tadpole lonely ? 
Does she mourn over the extinguished council-fires of her race, and the vanished 
glory of her ancestors ? Or does her sad spirit wander afar toward the hunting- 
grounds whither her brave Gobbler-of-the-Lightnings is gone ? Why is my daughter 
silent? Has she aught against the 
paleface stranger?" 

The maiden said — 

" Faix, an' is it Biddy Malone ye 
dare to be callin' names? Lave this, 
or I'll shy your lean carcass over 
the cataract, ye sniveling blaggard!" 

I adjourned from there also. 

"Confound these Indians ! " I said. 
'' They told me they were tame ; but, 
if appearances go for anything, I 
should say they were all on the war 
path." 

I made one more attempt to fra- 
ternize with them, and only one. I 
came upon a camp of them gathered 
in the shade of a great tree, making wampum and moccasins, and addressed them 
in the language of friendship : 

"Noble Red Men, Braves, Grand Sachems, War Chiefs, Squaws, and High Muck- 
a-Mucks, the paleface from the land of the setting sun greets you ! You, Beneficent 
Polecat — you, Devourer of Mountains — you, Roaring Thundergust — you, Bully Boy 
with a Glass eye — the paleface from beyond the great waters greets you all ! War 
and pestilence have thinned your ranks, and destroyed your once proud nation. 
Poker and seven-up, and a vain modern expense for soap, unknown to your glorious 
ancestors, have depleted your purses. Appropriating, in your simplicity, the prop- 
erty of others, has gotten you into trouble. Misrepresenting facts, in your simple 




70 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

innocence, has damaged your reputation with the soulless usurper. Trading for 
forty-rod whisky, to enable you to get drunk and happy and tomahawk your families, 
has played the everlasting mischief with the picturesque pomp of your dress, and 
here you are, in the broad light of the nineteenth century, gotten up like the ragtag 
and bobtail of the purlieus of New York. For shame ! Remember your ancestors ! 
Recall their mighty deeds! Remember Uncas ! — and Red Jacket! — and Hole in 
the Day! — and Whoopdedoodledo ! Emulate their achievements! Unfurl your- 
selves under my banner, noble savages, illustrious guttersnipes " 

"Down wid him!" "Scoop the blaggard!" "Burn him!" "Hang him!" 
" Dhround him !" 

It was the quickest operation that ever was. I simply saw a sudden flash in the 
air of clubs, brickbats, fists, bead-baskets, and moccasins — a single flash, and they 
all appeared to hit me at once, and no two of them in the same place. In the next 
instant the entire tribe was upon me. They tore half the clothes off me ; they 
broke my arms and legs ; they gave me a thump that dented the top of my head 
till it would hold coffee like a saucer ; and, to crown their disgraceful proceedings 
and add insult to injury, they threw me over the Niagara Falls, and I got wet. 

About ninety or a hundred feet from the top, the remains of my vest caught on 
a projecting rock, and I was almost drowned before I could get loose. I finally 
fell, and brought up in a world of white foam at the foot of the Fall, whose celled 
and bubbly masses towered up several inches above my head. Of course I got 

into the eddy. I sailed round and round in it forty-four times — chasing a chip 

... * 

and gaining on it — each round trip a half mile — reaching for the same bush on the 

bank forty-four times, and just exactly missing it by a hair's-breadth every time. 

At last a man walked down and sat down close to that bush, and put a pipe in 
his mouth, and lit a match, and followed me with one eye and kept the other on 
the match, while he sheltered it in his hands from the wind. Presently a puff of 
wind blew it out. The next time I swept around he said — 

" Got a match?" 

"Yes; in my other vest. Help me out, please." 

" Not for Joe." 

When I came round again, I said — 



XI AGAR A. 



71 



"Excuse the seemingly impertinent curiosity of a drowning man, but will you 
explain this singular conduct of yours ?" 

" With pleasure. I am the coroner. Don't hurry on my account. I can wait 
for you. But I wish I had a match." 

I said — "Take my place, and I'll go and get you one." 

He declined. This lack of confidence on his part created a coldness between 
us, and from that time forward I avoided him. It was my idea, in case anything 

happened to me, to I^MW^^^MK^,;:,, ;vM^{Mj\ S ° timC the ° CCUr " 
rence as to throw ^^M///S^^^^^Sl^fm'' j ' IKmy m Y custom mto tne 

hands of the oppo- •■ WSmi^^^^K^^M^^M^- •:■% .-'-'M' sition coroner over 

At last a police- K^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^i- man came a l° n g> 

and arrested me ^Ul^^^^^^^^^^^^^:4r^^\ *" or disturbing the 

peace by yelling at ^^m^^SH^^S^^S^^I^^^^t people on shore for 

help. The judge l ^^^S^^^^^^^^m ; 'BK^^^M fined me « uut * nac * 

the advantage of ~5^^ii^ JjjwSPR ^$»ot| him. Mv money 

a very critical con- ~ ;: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^iK - \ v N - v ^^ '%w\^j ?#A^\^w4< Qition. i\t least J. 

critical. I am hurt J)r^'W:^ all over, but I can- 

not tell the full |f / /Q Xj ^> '-^ ^\mMl^i J )^- ^^ I extent yet, because 
the doctor is not done taking inventory. He will make out my manifest this eve- 
ning. However, thus far he thinks only sixteen of my wounds are fatal. I don't 
mind the others. 

Upon regaining my right mind, I said — 

" It is an awful savage tribe of Indians that do the bead work and moccasins for 
Niagara Falls, doctor. Where are they from?" 

" Limerick, my son." 



4 



"Moral Statistician." — I don't want any of your statis- 
tics ; I took your whole batch and lit my pipe with it. I hate 
your kind of people. You are always ciphering out how much 
a man's health is injured, and how much his intellect is im- 
paired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents he wastes in 
the course of ninety-two years' indulgence in the fatal practice 
of smoking; and in the equally fatal practice of drinking 
coffee ; and in playing billiards occasionally ; and in taking 
a glass of wine at dinner, etc. etc. etc. And you are always 
figuring out how many women have been burned to death 
because of the dangerous fashion of wearing expansive hoops, 
etc. etc. etc. You never see more than one side of the 
question. You are blind to the fact that most old men in 
America smoke and drink coffee, although, according to your 
theory, they ought to have died young; and that hearty old 
Englishmen drink wine and survive it, and portly old Dutch- 
men both drink and smoke freely, and yet grow older and 
fatter all the time. And you never try to find out how much 
solid comfort, relaxation, and enjoyment a man derives from 
smoking in the course of a lifetime (which is worth ten times 
the money he would save by letting it alone), nor the appall- 
ing aggregate of happiness lost in a lifetime by your kind of 
people from not smoking. Of course you can save money by denying yourself 
all those little vicious enjoyments for fifty years ; but then what can you do 

72 




ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 73 

with it? What use can you put it to? Money can't save your infinitesimal soul. 
All the use that money can be put to is to purchase comfort and enjoyment in this 
life; therefore, as you are an enemy to comfort and enjoyment, where is the use 
of accumulating cash? It won't do for you to say that you can use it to 
better purpose in furnishing a good table, and in charities, and in supporting 
tract societies, because you know yourself that you people who have no petty 
vices are never known to give away a cent, and that you stint yourselves 
so in the matter of food that you are always feeble and hungry. And you 
never dare to laugh in the daytime for fear some poor wretch, seeing you 
in a good humor, will try to borrow a dollar of you ; and in church you are 
always down on your knees, with your eyes buried in the cushion, when the con- 
tribution-box comes around ; and you never give the revenue officers a full state- 
ment of your income. Now you know all these things yourself, don't you? Very 
well, then, what is the use of your stringing out your miserable lives to a lean and 
withered old age ? What is the use of your saving money that is so utterly worth- 
less to you? In a word, why don't you go off somewhere and die, and not be 
always trying to seduce people into becoming as "ornery " and unloveable as you 
are yourselves, by your villainous "moral statistics?" Now, I don't approve of 
dissipation, and I don't indulge in it either; but I haven't a particle of confidence 
in a man who has no redeeming petty vices, and so I don't want to hear from 
you any more. I think you are the very same man who read me a long lecture 
last week about the degrading vice of smoking cigars, and then came back, in my 
absence, with your reprehensible fire-proof gloves on, and carried off my beautiful 
parlor stove. 

"Young Author." — Yes, Agassiz does recommend authors to eat fish, because 
the phosphorus in it makes brains. So far you are correct. But I cannot help you 
to a decision about the amount you need to eat — at least, not with certainty. If 
the specimen composition you send is about your fair usual average, I should judge 
that perhaps a couple of whales would be all you would want for the present. Not 
the largest kind, but simply good, middling-sized whales. 

" Simon Wheeler," Sonora. — The following simple and touching remarks and 



74 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

accompanying poem have just come to hand from the rich gold-mining region of 
Sonora : — 

To Mr. Mark Twain: The within parson, which I have set to poetry under the name and style 
©f " He Done His Level Best," was one among the whitest men I ever see, and it an't every man 
that knowed him that can find it in his heart to say he's glad the poor cuss is busted and gone 
home to the States. He was here in an early day, and he was the handyest man about takin' holt 
of anything that come along you most ever see, I judge. He was a cheerful, stirrin' cretur, 
always doin' somethin', and no man can say he ever see him do anything by halvers. Preachin' 
was his nateral gait, but he warn't a man to lay back and twidle his thumbs because there didn't 
happen to be nothin' doin' in his own especial line — no, sir, he was a man who would meander 
forth and stir up something for hisself. His last acts was to go his pile on " k'mgs-and " (calklatin* 
to fill, but which he didn't fill), when there was a " flush " out agin him, and naterally, you see, he 
went under. And so he was cleaned out, as you may say, and he struck the home-trail, cheerful 
but flat broke. I knowed this talonted man in Arkansaw, and if you would print this humbly 
tribute to his gorgis abilities, you would greatly obleege his onhappy friend. 

HE DONE HIS LEVEL BEST. 

Was he a mining on the flat- 
He done it with a zest ; 

Was he a leading of the choir- 
He done his level best. 

If he'd a reg'lar task to do, 
He never took no rest ; 

Ot if 'twas off-and-on — the same- 
He done his level best. 

If he was preachin' on his beat, 

He'd tramp from east to west, 
And north to south — in cold and heat 

He done his level best. 

He'd yank a sinner outen (Hades), * 

And land him with the blest ; 
Then snatch a prayer'n waltz in again, 

And do his level best. 



* Here I have taken a slight liberty with the original MS. " Hades " does not make such good 
metre as the other word of one syllable, but it sounds better. 



ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 75 

He'd cuss and sing and howl and pray, 

And dance and drink and jest, 
And lie and steal — all one to him — 

He done his level best. 

Whate'er this man was sot to do, 

He done it with a zest ; 
No matter what his contract was, 

He'd do his level best. 

Verily, this man was gifted with "gorgis abilities," and it is a happiness to me to 
embalm the memory of their lustre in these columns. If it were not that the poet 
crop is unusually large and rank in California this year, I would encourage you to 
continue writing, Simon Wheeler ; but, as it is, perhaps it might be too risky in you 
to enter against so much opposition. 

"Professional Beggar." No ; you are not obliged to take greenbacks at par. 

"Melton Mowbray,"* Dutch Flat. — This correspondent sends a lot of dog- 
gerel, and says it has been regarded as very good in Dutch Flat. I give a specimen 
verse : — 

" The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, 
And his cohorts were gleaming with purple and gold ; 
And the sheen of his spears was like stars on the sea ; 
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee." 

There, that will do. That may be very good Dutch Flat poetry, but it won't do 
in the metropolis. It is too smooth and blubbery ; it reads like buttermilk gurgling 
from a jug. What the people ought to have is something spirited — something like 
"Johnny Comes Marching Home." However, keep on practising, and you may 
succeed yet. There is genius in you, but too much blubber. 

"St. Clair Higgins." Los Angeles. — *'My life is a failure; I have adored, wildly, madly, and 



*This piece of pleasantry, published in a San Francisco paper, was mistaken by the country 
journals for seriousness, and many and loud were the denunciations of the ignorance of author and 
editor, in not knowing that the lines in question were " written by Byron." 



76 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

she whom I love has turned coldly from me and shed her affections upon another. What would 
you advise me to do ?" 

You should set your affections on another, also — or on several, if there are 
enough to go round. Also, do everything you can to make your former name 
unhappy. There is an absurd idea disseminated in novels, that the happier a girl 
is with another man, the happier it makes the old lover she has blighted. Don't 
allow yourself to believe any such nonsense as that. The more cause that girl 
finds to regret that she did not marry you, the more comfortable you will feel over 
it. It isn't poetical, but it is mighty sound doctrine. 

" Arithmeticus." Virginia, Nevada. — " If it would take a cannon ball 3 1-3 seconds to travel 
four miles, and 3 3-8 seconds to travel the next four, and 3 5-8 to travel the next four, and if its 
rate of progress continued to diminish in the same ratio, how long would it take it to go fifteen 
hundred millions of miles ? 

I don't know. 

" Ambitious Learner," Oakland. — Yes ; you are right — America was not discov- 
ered by Alexander Selkirk. 

" Discarded Lover." — I loved, and still love, the beautiful Edwitha Howard, and intended to 
marry her. Yet, during my temporary absence at Benicia, last week, alas ! she married Jones. Is 
my happiness to be thus blasted for life ? Have I no redress ? " 

Of course you have. All the law, written and unwritten, is on you side. The 
intention and not the act constitutes crime — in other words, constitutes the deed. 
If you call your bosom friend a fool, and intend it for an insult, it is an insult; but 
if you do it playfully, and meaning no insult, it is not an insult. If you discharge 
a pistol accidentally, and kill a man, you can go free, for you have done no murder ; 
but if you try to kill a man, and manifestly intend to kill him, but fail utterly to do 
it, the law still holds that the intention constituted the crime, and you are guilty of 
murder. Ergo, if you had married Edwitha accidentally, and without really intend- 
ing to do it, you would not actually be married to her at all, because the act of 
marriage could not be complete without the intention. And ergo, in the strict spirit 
of the law, since you deliberately intended to marry Edwitha, and didn't do it, you 



ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 77 

are married to her all the same — because, as I said before, the intention constitutes 
the crime. It is as clear as day that Edwitha is your wife, and your redress lies in 
taking a club and mutilating Jones with it as much as you can. Any man has a 
right to protect his own wife from the advances of other men. But you have 
another alternative — you were married to Edwitha first, because of your deliberate 
intention, and now you can prosecute her for bigamy, in subsequently marrying 
Jones. But there is another phase in this complicated case : You intended to marry 
Edwitha, and consequently, according to law, she is your wife — there is no getting 
around that ; but she didn't marry you, and if she never i?ite?ided to marry you, you 
are not her husband, of course. Ergo, in marrying Jones, she was guilty of bigamy, 
because she was the wife of another man at the time ; which is all very well as far 
as it goes— but then, don't you see, she had no other husband when she married 
Jones, and consequently she was not guilty of bigamy. Now, according to this 
view of the case, Jones married a spinster, who was a widow at the same time and 
another man's wife at the same time, and yet who had no husband and never had 
one, and never had any intention of getting married, and therefore, of course, never 
had been married ; and by the same reasoning you are a bachelor, because you have 
never been any one's husband; and a married man, because you have a wife living; 
and to all intents and purposes a widower, because you have been deprived of that 
wife ; and a consummate ass for going off to Benicia in the first place, while things 
were so mixed. And by this time I have got myself so tangled up in the intricacies 
of this extraordinary case that I shall have to give up any further attempt to advise 
you — I might get confused and fail to make myself understood. I think I could 
take up the argument where I left off, and by following it closely awhile, perhaps I 
could prove to your satisfaction, either that you never existed at all, or that you 
are dead now, and consequently don't need the faithless Edwitha — I think I could 
do that, if it would afford you any comfort. 

"Arthur Augustus." — No; you are wrong; that is the proper way to throw a 
brickbat or a tomahawk; but it doesn't answer so well for a bouquet; you will hurt 
somebody if you keep it up. Turn your nosegay upside down, take it by the stems, 
and toss it with an upward sweep. Did you ever pitch quoits ? that is the idea. 
The practice of reckles^y heaving immense solid bouquets, of the general size and 



78 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

weight of prize cabbages, from the dizzy altitude of the galleries, is dangerous and 
very reprehensible. Now, night before last, at the Academy of Music, just after 

Signorina had finished that exquisite melody, " The Last Rose of Summer," 

one of these floral pile-drivers came cleaving down through the atmosphere of 
applause, and if she hadn't deployed suddenly to the right, it would have driven 
her into the floor like a shingle-nail. Of course that bouquet was well meant ; but 
how would you like to have been the target ? A sincere compliment is always 
grateful to a lady, so long as you don't try to knock her down with it. 

"Young Mother." — And so you think a baby is a thing of beauty and a joy 
forever ? Well, the idea is pleasing, but not original ; every cow thinks the same 
of its own calf. Perhaps the cow may not think it so elegantly, but still she thinks 
it nevertheless. I honor the cow for it. We all honor this touching maternal 
instinct wherever we find it, be it in the home of luxury or in the humble cow-shed. 
But really, madam, when I come to examine the matter in all its bearings, I find 
that the correctness of your assertion does not assert itself in all cases. A soiled 
baby, with a neglected nose, cannot be conscientiously regarded as a thing of 
beauty; and inasmuch as babyhood spans but three short years, no baby is compe- 
tent to be a joy " forever." It pains me thus to demolish two-thirds of your pretty 
sentiment in a single sentence ; but the position I hold in this chair requires that I 
shall not permit you to deceive and mislead the public with your plausible figures 
of speech. I know a female baby, aged eighteen months, in this city, which cannot 
hold out as a "joy" twenty-four hours on a stretch, let alone "forever." And it 
possesses some of the most remarkable eccentricities of character and appetite that 
have ever fallen under my notice. I will set down here a statement of this infant's 
operations (conceived, planned, and carried out by itself, and without suggestion 
or assistance from its mother or anyone else), during a single day ; and what I 
shall say can be substantiated by the sworn testimony of witnesses. 

It commenced by eating one dozen large blue-mass pills, box and all; then it 
fell down a flight of stairs, and arose with a blue and purple knot on its forehead, 
after which it proceeded in quest of further refreshment and amusement. It found 
a glass trinket ornamented with brass-work — smashed up and ate the glass, and 
then swallowed the brass. Then it drank about twenty drops of laudanum, and 



ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 79 

more than a dozen tablespoonfuls of strong spirits of camphor. The reason why it 
took no more laudanum was because there was no more to take. After this it lay 
down on its back, and shoved five or six inches of a silver-headed whale-bone cane 
down its throat; got it fast there, and it was all its mother could do to pull the cane 
out again, without pulling out some of the child with it. Then, being hungry for 
glass again, it broke up several wine-glasses, and fell to eating and swallowing the 
fragments, not minding a cut or two. Then it ate a quantity of butter, pepper, 
salt, and California matches, actually taking a spoonful of butter, a spoonful of salt, 
a spoonful of pepper, and three or four lucifer matches at each mouthful. (I will 
remark here that this thing of beauty likes painted German lucifers, and eats all 
she can get of them ; but she prefers California matches, which I regard as a com- 
pliment to our home manufactures of more than ordinary value, coming, as it does, 
from one who is too young to flatter.) Then she washed her head with soap and 
water, and afterwards ate what soap was left, and drank as much of the suds as she 
had room for ; after which she sallied forth and took the cow familiarly by the tail, 
and got kicked heels over head. At odd times during the day, when this joy for 
ever happened to have nothing particular on hand, she put in the time by climbing 
up on places, and falling down off them, uniformly damaging herself in the opera- 
tion. As young as she is, she speaks many words tolerably distinctly; and being 
plain-spoken in other respects, blunt and to the point, she opens conversation with 
all strangers, male or female, with the same formula, "How do, Jim?" Not being 
familiar with the ways of children, it is possible that I have been magnifying into 
matter of surprise things which may not strike any one who is familiar with infancy 
as being at all astonishing. However, I cannot believe that such is the case, and 
so I repeat that my report of this baby's performances is strictly true ; and if any 
one doubts it, I can produce the child. I will further engage that she will devour 
anything that is given her (reserving to myself only the right to exclude anvils), 
and fall down from any place to which she may be elevated (merely stipulating 
that her preference for alighting on her head shall be respected, and, therefore, 
that the elevation chosen shall be high enough to enable her to accomplish this to 
her satisfaction.) But I find I have wandered from my subject; so, without further 
argument, I will reiterate my conviction that not all babies are things of beauty 
and joys forever. 



80 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

" Arithmeticus." Virginia, Nevada. — " I am an enthusiastic student of mathematics, and it is 
so vexatious to me to find my progress constantly impeded by these mysterious arithmetical tech- 
nicalities. Now do tell me what the difference is between geometry and conchology ? " 

Here you come again with your arithmetical conundrums, when I am suffering 
death with a cold in the head. If you could have seen the expression of scorn that 
darkened my countenance a moment ago, and was instantly split from the centre 
in every direction like a fractured looking-glass by my last sneeze, you never would 
have written that disgraceful question. Conchology is a science which has nothing 
to do with mathematics : it Telates only to shells. At the same time, however, a 
man who opens oysters for a hotel, or shells a fortified town, or sucks eggs, is not, 
strictly speaking, a conchologist — a fine stroke of sarcasm that, but it will be lost 
on such an unintellectual clam as you. Now compare conchology and geometry 
together, and you will see what the difference is, and your question will be answered. 
But don't torture me with any more arithmetical horrors until you know I am rid 
of my cold. I feel the bitterest animosity towards you at this moment — bothering 
me in this way, when I can do nothing but sneeze and rage and snort pocket- 
handkerchiefs to atoms. If I had you in range of my nose, now, I would blow 
your brains out. 




Seriously, from early youth I have 
taken an especial interest in the sub- 
ject of poultry-raising, and so this 
membership touches a ready sympa- 
thy in my breast. Even as a school- 
boy, poultry-raising was a study with 
me, and I may say without egotism 
that as early as the age of seventeen 
I was acquainted with all the best and 
speediest methods of raising chick- 
ens, from raising them off a roost by 
burning lucifer matches under their 
noses, down to lifting them off a fence 
on a frosty night by insinuating the 
end of a warm board under their heels. By the time I was twenty years old, I 

* Being a letter written to a Poultry Society that had conferred a complimentary membership 
opon the author. 

6 -. 81 



82 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 




really suppose I had raised more 
poultry than any one individual in all 
the section round about there. The 
very chickens came to know my talent, 
by and by. The youth of both sexes 
ceased to paw the earth for worms, 
and old roosters that came to crow, 
" remained to pray," when I passed by. 
I have had so much experience in 
the raising of fowls that I cannot but 
think that a few hints from me might 
be useful to the Society. The two 
methods I have already touched upon 
are very simple, and are only used in 
the raising of the commonest class of 
fowls; one is for summer, the other for 
winter. In the one case you start out 
with a friend along about eleven 
o'clock on a summer's night (not later, 
because in some States — especially in 
California and Oregon— chickens al- 
ways rouse up just at midnight and 
crow from ten to thirty minutes, 
according to the ease or difficulty they 
experience in getting the public waked 
up), and your friend carries with him 
a sack. Arrived at the hen-roost 
(your neighbor's, not your own), you 
light a match and hold it under first 
one and then another pullet's nose 
until they are willing to go into that 



bag without making any trouble about it. You then return home, either taking the 



RA I SING POULTRY. 83 



bag with you or leaving it behind, according as circumstances shall dictate. N. B, 
I have seen the time when it was eligible and appropriate to leave the sack behind 
and walk off with considerable velocity, without ever leaving any word where to 
send it. 

In the case of the other method mentioned for raising poultry, your friend takes 
along a covered vessel with a charcoal fire in it, and you carry a long slender 
plank. This is a frosty night, understand. Arrived at the tree, or fence, or other 
hen-roost (your own if you are an idiot), you warm the end of your plank in your 
friend's fire vessel, and then raise it aloft and ease it up gently against a slumbering 
chicken's foot. If the subject of your attentions is a true bird, he will infallibly 
return thanks with a sleepy cluck or two, and step out and take up quarters on the 
plank, thus becoming so conspicuously accessory before the fact to his own murder 
as to make it a grave question in our minds, as it once was in the mind of Black- 
stone, whether he is not really and deliberately committing suicide in the second 
degree. [But you enter into a contemplation of these legal refinements subsequently 
—not then]. 

When you wish to raise a fine, large, donkey-voiced Shanghai rooster, you do it 
with a lasso, just as you would a bull. It is because he must be choked, and choked 
effectually, too. It is the only good, certain way, for whenever he mentions a 
matter which he is cordially interested in, the chances are ninety-nine in a hundred 

that he secures somebody else's immediate attention to it too, whether it be day or 
night. 

The Black Spanish is an exceedingly fine bird and a costly one. Thirty-five 
dollars is the usual figure, and fifty a not uncommon price for a specimen. Even 
its eggs are worth from a dollar to a dollar and a half a-piece, and yet are so 
unwholesome that the city physician seldom or never orders them for the workhouse. 
Still I have once or twice procured as high as a dozen at a time for nothing, in the 
dark of the moon. The best way to raise the Black Spanish fowl is to go late in 
the evening and raise coop and all. The reason I recommend this method is, that 
the birds being so valuable, the owners do not permit them to roost around pro- 
miscuously, but put them in a coop as strong as a fire-proof safe, and keep it in the 
kitchen at night. The method I speak of is not always a bright and satisfying 



$4 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



success, and yet there are so many little articles of vertu about a kitchen, that if 
you fail on the coop you can generally bring away something else. I brought away 
a nice steel trap one night, worth ninety cents. 

But what is the use in my pouring out my whole intellect on this subject ? I have 
shown the Western New York Poultry Society that they have taken to their bosom 
a party who is not a spring chicken by any means, but a man who knows all about 
poultry, and is just as high up in the most efficient methods of raising it as the 
President of the institution himself. I thank these gentlemen for the honorary 
membership they have conferred upon me, and shall stand at all times ready and 
-willing to testify my good feeling and my official zeal by deeds as well as by this 
■hastily penned advice and information. Whenever they are ready to go to raising 
poultry, let them call for me any evening after eleven o'clock, and I shall be on 
iiand promptly. 





EXPERIENCE OF THE McWILLIAMSES 
WITH MEMBRANOUS CROUP. 

[As related to the author of this book by Mr^ 
Mc Williams ) a pleasant New York gentleman, 
whom the said author ?net by chance on at 
journey '.] 

ELL, to go back to where I was before 
I digressed to explain to you how that 
frightful and incurable disease, mem- 
branous croup, was ravaging the town and 
driving all mothers mad with terror, I called 
Mrs. McWilliams's attention to little Penelope 
and said : 

" Darling, I wouldn't let that child be chewing that pine stick if I were you." 
" Precious, where is the harm in it ? " said she, but at the same time preparing 

85 



W 



86 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

to take away the stick — for women cannot receive even the most palpably judicious 
suggestion without arguing it; that is, married women. 

I replied : 

"Love, it is notorious that pine is the least nutritious wood that a child can eat." 

My wife's hand paused, in the act of taking the stick, and returned itself to her 
lap. She bridled perceptibly, and said : 

" Hubby, you know better than that. You know you do. Doctors all say that 
the turpentine in pine wood is good for weak back and the kidneys." 

"Ah — I was under a misapprehension. I did not know that the child's kidneys 
and spine were affected, and that the family physician had recommended — " 

" Who said the child's spine and kidneys were affected ? " 

" My love, you intimated it." 

"The idea! I never intimated anything of the kind." 

"Why my dear, it hasn't been two minutes since you said — " 

" Bother what I said ! I don't care what I did say. There isn't any harm in the 
child's chewing a bit of pine stick if she wants to, and you know it perfectly well. 
And she shall chew it, too. So there, now ! " 

" Say no more, my dear. I now see the force of your reasoning, and I will go 
and order two or three cords of the best pine wood to-day. No child of mine shall 
want while I — " 

" O please go along to your office and let me have some peace. A body can never 
make the simplest remark but you must take it up and go to arguing and arguing 
and arguing till you don't know what you are talking about, and you 7iever do." 

" Very well, it shall be as you say. But there is a want of logic in your last 
remark which — " 

However, she was gone with a flourish before I could finish, and had taken the 
child with her. That night at. dinner she confronted me with a face as white as a 
sheet : 

" O, Mortimer, there's another! Little Georgie Gordon is taken." 

" Membranous croup ? " 

"Membranous croup." 

" Is there any hope for him ? " 



THE MEMBRANOUS CROUP. 



87 



"None in the wide world. O, what is to become of us ! " 

By and by a nurse brought in our Penelope to say good-night and offer the 
customary prayer at the mother's knee. In the midst of " Now I lay me down to 
sleep," she gave a slight cough! My wife fell back like one stricken with death. 
But the next moment she was up and brimming with the activities which terror 
inspires. 

She commanded that the child's crib be removed from the nursery to our 
bed-room ; and she went along to see the order executed. She took me with her, 
of course. We got matters arranged with speed. A cot bed was put up in my 

room for the 



wife's dressing 
nurse. But now 
liams said we 
away from the 
what if he were to 
toms in the 
blanched again, 

We then re- 
and the nurse 
and put vp a 
in a room ad- 

Presently, 
M c W i 1 1 i a m s 
b a b y should 
nelope ? This 
a new panic to 
the tribe of us 
crib out of the 
fast enough to 




Mrs. McWil- 
were too far 
other baby, and 
have the symp- 
night — and she 
poor thing, 
stored the crib 
to the nursery 
bed for ourselves 
joining. 

however, M r s. 
said suppose the 
catch it from Pe- 
thought struck 
her heart, and 
could not get the 
nursery again 
satisfy my wife, 

though she assisted in her own person and well nigh pulled the crib to pieces in her 

frantic hurry. 

We moved down stairs; but there was no place there to stow the nurse, and Mrs. 

McWilliams said the nurse's experience would be an inestimable help. So we 



&S MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

returned, bag and baggage, to our own bed-room once more, and felt a great 
gladness, like storm-buffeted birds that have found their nest again. 

Mrs. McWilliams sped to the nursery to see how things were going on there. 
She was back in a moment with a new dread. She said: 

"What can make Baby sleep so?" 

I said : 

"Why, my darling, Baby always sleeps like a graven image." 

"I know. I know; but there's something peculiar about his sleep, now. He 
seems to — to — he seems to breathe so regularly. O, this is dreadful." 

"But my dear he always breathes regularly." 

"Oh, I know it, but there's something frightful about it now. His nurse is too 
young and inexperienced. Maria shall stay there with her, and be on hand if 
anything happens." 

" That is a good idea, but who will help you? " 

"You can help me all I want. I wouldn't allow anybody to do anything but 
myself, any how, at such a time as this." 

I said I would feel mean to lie abed and sleep, and leave her to watch and toil 
over our little patient all the weary night. — But she reconciled me to it. So old 
Maria departed and took up her ancient quarters in the nursery. 

Penelope coughed twice in her sleep. 

" Oh, why don't that doctor come ! Mortimer, this room is too warm. This 
room is certainly too warm. Turn off the register — quick! " 

I shut it off, glancing at the thermometer at the same time, and wondering to 
myself if 70 was too warm for a sick child. 

The coachman arrived from down town, now, with the news that our physician 
was ill and confined to his bed. — Mrs. McWilliams turned a dead eye upon me,, 
and said in a dead voice : 

"There is a Providence in it. It is foreordained. He never was sick before.— 
Never. We have not been living as we ought to live, Mortimer. Time and time 
again I have told you so. Now you see the result. Our child will never get well. 
Be thankful if you can forgive yourself; I never can forgive myself." 

I said, without intent to hurt, but with heedless choice of words, that I could not 
see that we had been living such an abandoned life. 



THE MEMBRANOUS CROUP. 89 

"Mortimer ! Do you want to bring the judgment upon Baby, too! " 

Then she began to cry, but suddenly exclaimed: 

"The doctor must have sent medicines! " 

I said : 

"Certainly. They are here. I was only waiting for you to give me a chance." 

" Well do give them to me ! Don't you know that every moment is precious 
now ? But what was the use in sending medicines, when he knows that the disease 
is incurable? " 

I said that while there was life there was hope. 

" Hope ! Mortimer, you know no more what you are talking about than the child 
unborn. If you would — . As I live, the directions say give one teaspoonful once 
an hour! Once an hour! — as if we had a whole year before us to save the child 
in! Mortimer, please hurry. Give the poor perishing thing a table-spoonful, and 
try to be quick ! " 

"Why, my dear, a table-spoonful might — " 

" Do?it drive me frantic! There, there, there, my precious, my own; it's 

nasty bitter stuff, but it's good for Nelly — good for Mother's precious darling; and 
it will make her well. There, there, there, put the little head on Mamma's breast 
and go to sleep, and pretty soon — Oh, I know she can't live till morning ! Morti- 
mer, a table-spoonful every half hour will — . Oh, the child needs belladonna too ; I 
know she does — and aconite. Get them, Mortimer. Now do let me have my way. 
You know nothing about these things." 

We now went to bed, placing the crib close to my wife's pillow. All this turmoil 
had worn upon me, and within two minutes I was something more than half asleep. 
Mrs. McWilliams roused me : 

"Darling, is that register turned on? " 

"No." 

" I thought as much. Please turn it on at once. This room is cold." 

I turned it on, and presently fell asleep again. I was aroused once more : 

" Dearie, would you mind moving the crib to your side of the bed? It is nearer 
the register." 

I moved Lt, but had a collision with the rug and woke up the child. I dozed off 



9° 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



once more, while my wife quieted the sufferer. But in a little while these words 
came murmuring remotely through the fog of my drowsiness : 

" Mortimer, if we only had some goose-grease — will you ring ? " 

I climbed dreamily out, and stepped on a cat, which responded with a protest 
and would have got a convincing kick for it if a chair had not got it instead. 

" Now, Mortimer, why do you want to turn up the gas and wake up the child 
again ? " 

"Because I want to see how much I am hurt, Caroline." 

" Well look at the chair, too — I have no doubt it is ruined. Poor cat, suppose 



you had — " 

not going to 
thing about the 
would have oc- 
had been al- 
here and attend 
which are in her 
in mine." 
mer, I should 
be ashamed to 
like that. It is 
cannot do the 
I ask o f you a t 
f u 1 time as 
child—" 
I will do any- 
But I can't raise 
thisbell. They're 
Where is the 




"Now I am 
suppose a n y- 
cat. 1 1 never 
curred if Maria 
lowed to remain 
to these duties, 
line and are not 

" Now Morti- 
think you would 
make a remark 
a pity if you 
few little things 
such an a w- 
this when our 

"There, there, 
thing you want, 
anybody with 
all gone to bed. 
goose-grease ? " 



" On the mantel piece in the nursery. If you'll step there and speak to Maria — " 
I fetched the goose-grease and went to sleep again : Once more I was called : 
" Mortimer, I so hate to disturb you, but the room is still too cold for me to try 

to apply this stuff. Would you mind lighting the fire ? It is all ready to touch a 

match to. " 



THE MEMBRANOUS CROUP. 



91 



I dragged myself out and lit the fire, and then sat down disconsolate. 

" Mortimer, don't sit there and catch your death of cold. Come to bed." 

"As I was stepping in, she said : 

"But wait a moment. Please give the child some more of the medicine." 

Which I did. It was a medicine which made a child more or less lively ; so my 
wife made use of its waking interval to strip it and grease it all over with the goose- 
oil. I was soon asleep once more, but once more I had to get up. 

'* Mortimer, I feel a draft. I feel it distinctly. There is nothing so bad for this 
disease as a draft. Please move the crib in front of the fire." 

I did it ; and collided with the rug again, which I threw in the fire. Mrs. Mc 



Williams sprang 
rescued i t and 
words. I had 
interval of sleep, 
by request, and 
a flax-seed poul- 
placed upon the 
and left there to 
work. 

not a perraa- 
got up every 
and renewed 
gave Mrs. M c 
portunity to 
of giving the 
minutes, which 
isfaction to her. 
between times, 




out of bed and 
we had some 
another trifling 
and then got up, 
constructed 
tice. This was 
child's breast 
do its healing 
A wood fire is 
nent thing. I 
twenty minutes 
ours, and this 
Williams the op- 
shorten the times 
medicines by ten 
was a great sat- 
Now and then, 
I reorganized the 



the flax-seed poultices, and applied sinapisms and other sorts of blisters where 
unoccupied places could be found upon the child. Well, toward morning the 
wood gave out and my wife wanted me to go down cellar and get some more. 
I said : 

" My dear, it is a laborious job, and the child must be nearly warm enough, with 



92 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

her extra clothing. Now mightn't we put on another layer of poultices and — " 

I did not finish, because I was interrupted. I lugged wood up from below for 
some little time, and then turned in and fell to snoring as only a man can whose 
strength is all gone and whose soul is worn out. Just at broad daylight I felt a 
grip on my shoulder that brought me to my senses suddenly. — My wife was glaring 
down upon me and gasping. As soon as she could command her tongue she said : 

" It is all over ! All over! The child's perspiring ! What shall we do ? 

" Mercy, how you terrify me ! /don't know what we ought to do. Maybe if 
we scraped her and put her in the draft again — " 

" O, idiot ! There is not a moment to lose ! Go for the doctor. Go yourself. 
Tell him he must come, dead or alive." 

I dragged that poor sick man from his bed and brought him. He looked at the 
child and said she was not dying. This was joy unspeakable to me, but it made 
my wife as mad as if he had offered her a personal affront. Then he said the 
child's cough was only caused by some trifling irritation or other in the throat. At 
this I thought my wife had a mind to show him the door. — Now the doctor said he 
would make the child cough harder and dislodge the trouble. So he gave her 
something that sent her into a spasm of coughing, and presently up came a little 
wood splinter or so. 

"This child has no membranous croup," said he. '" She has been chewing a bit 
of pine shingle or something of the kind, and got some Tittle slivers in her throat. 
They won't do her any hurt." 

" No," said I, " I can well believe that. Indeed the turpentine that is in them 
is very good for certain sorts of diseases that are peculiar to children. My wife 
will tell you so." 

But she did not. She turned awiiy in disdain and left the room; and since that 
time there is one episode in our life which we never refer to. Hence the tide of 
our days flows by in deep and untroubled serenity. 

[Very few married men have such an experience as McWilliams's, and so the author of this book 
thought that maybe the novelty of it would give it a passing interest to the reader.] 



MY FIRST LITERARY VENTURE* 

I WAS a very smart child at the age of thirteen — an unusually smart child, I 
thought at the time. It was then that I did my first newspaper scribbling, and 
most unexpectedly to me it stirred up a fine sensation in the community. It 
did, indeed, and I was very proud of it, too. I was a printer's " devil," and a 
progressive and aspiring one. My uncle had me on his paper (the Weekly Hanni- 
bal Journal, two dollars a year in advance — five hundred subscribers, and they 
paid in cordwood, cabbages, and unmarketable turnips), and on a lucky summer's 
day he left town to be gone a week, and asked me if I thought I could edit one 
issue of the paper judiciously. Ah! didn't I want to try! Higgins was the editor 
on the rival paper. He had lately been jilted, and one night a friend found an open 
note on the poor fellow's bed, in which he stated that he could no longer endure 
life and had drowned himself in Bear Creek. The friend ran down there and 
discovered Higgins wading back to shore! He had concluded he wouldn't. The 
village was full of it for several days, but Higgins did not suspect it. I thought 
this was a fine opportunity. I wrote an elaborately wretched account of the whole 
matter, and then illustrated it with villainous cuts engraved on the bottoms of 
wooden type with a jack-knife — one of them a picture of Higgins wading out into 
the creek in his shirt, with a lantern, sounding the depth of the water with a 
walking-stick. I thought it was desperately funny, and was densely unconscious 
that there was any moral obliquity about such a publication. Being satisfied with 
this effort I looked around for other worlds to conquer, and it struck me that it 
would make good, interesting matter to charge the editor of a neighboring counlry 

93 



94 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 




paper with a piece of gratuitous rascal- 
ity and "see him squirm." 

I did it, putting the article into the 
form of a parody on the Burial of " Sir 
John Moore" — and a pretty crude 
parody it was, too. 

Then I lampooned two prominent 
citizens outrageously — not because 
they had done anything to deserve it, 
but merely because I thought it was 
my duty to make the paper lively. 

Next I gently touched up the newest 
stranger — the lion of the day, the 
gorgeous journeyman tailor from 
Quincy. He was a simpering cox- 
comb of the first water, and the 
" loudest " dressed man in the State. 
He was an inveterate woman-killer. 
Every week he wrote lushy "poetry" 
for the "Journal," about his newest 
conquest. His rhymes for my week 

were headed, "To Mary in H L," 

meaning to Mary in Hannibal, of 
course. But while setting u p the 
piece I was suddenly riven from 
head to heel by what I regarded as a 
perfect thunderbolt of humor, and I 
compressed it into a snappy foot-note 
at the bottom — thus : — "We will let this 
thing pass, just this once; but we wish 
Mr. J. Gordon Runnels to understand 
distinctly that we have a character to 



M \ ' FIR ST LI TERA R V VEN TURE. 95 



sustain, and from this time forth when he wants to commune with his friends in 
h — 1, he must select some other medium than the columns of this journal! " 

The paper came out, and I never knew any little thing attract so much attention 

as those playful trifles of mine. 

For once the Hannibal Journal was in demand — a novelty it had not experienced 
before. The whole town was stirred. Higgins dropped in with a double-barrelled 
shot-gun early in the forenoon. When he found that it was an infant (as he called 
me) that had done him the damage, he simply pulled my ears and went away ; but 
he threw up his situation that night and left town for good. The tailor came with 
his goose and a pair of shears; but he despised me too, and departed for the South 
that night. The two lampooned citizens came with threats of libel, and went away 
incensed at my insignificance. The country editor pranced in with a warwhoop 
next day, suffering for blood to drink; but he ended by forgiving me cordially and 
inviting me down to the drug store to wash away all animosity in a friendly bump- 
er of "Fahnestock's Vermifuge." It was his little joke. My uncle was very angry 
when he got back — unreasonably so, I thought, considering what an impetus I had 
given the paper, and considering also that gratitude for his preservation ought to 
have been uppermost in his mind, inasmuch as by his delay he had so wonderfully 
escaped dissection, tomahawking, libel, and getting his head shot off. But he 
softened when he looked at the accounts and saw that I had actually booked the 
unparalleled number of thirty-three new subscribers, and had the vegetables to 
show for it, cordwood, cabbage, beans, and unsalable turnips enough to run the 
family for two years ! 




IT is seldom pleasant to tell 
on one's self, but sometimes 
it is a sort of relief to a 
~S/f#i/& a ^,.<a* man to make a confession. I 
wish to unburden my mind now, and 
yet I almost believe that I am moved to 
do it more because I long to bring cen- 
sure upon another man than because I 
desire to pour balm upon my wounded 
heart. (I don't know what balm is, but I 
believe it is the correct expression to use 
in this connection — never having seen 
•any balm.) You may remember that I 
lectured in Newark lately for the young 

gentlemen of the Society? I did 

at any rate. During the afternoon of that 
day I was talking with one of the young 
gentlemen just referred to, and he said he 
had an uncle who, from some cause or 
other, seemed to have grown permanently bereft of all emotion. And with 
tears in his eyes, this young man said, " Oh, if I could only see him laugh 

, 96 



HO W THE AUTHOR WAS SOLD IN NEWARK. 97 

once more! Oh, if I could only see him weep!" I was touched. I could 
never withstand distress. 

I said : " Bring him to my lecture. I'll start him for you." 

" Oh, if you could but do it ! If you could but do it, all our family would 
bless you for evermore — for he is so very dear to us. Oh, my benefactor, can 
you make him laugh? can you bring soothing tears to those parched orbs? " 

I w T as profoundly moved. I said: "My son, bring the old party round. I 
have got some jokes in that lecture that will make him laugh if there is any laugh 
in him ; and if they miss fire, I have got some others that will make him cry or 
kill him, one or the other." Then the young man blessed me, and wept on my 
neck, and went after his uncle. He placed him in full view, in the second row 
of benches that night, and I began on him. I tried him with mild jokes, then 
with severe ones; I dosed him with bad jokes and riddled him with good ones; 
I fired old stale jokes into him, and peppered him fore and aft with red-hot new 
ones ; I warmed up to my work, and assaulted him on the right and left, in 
front and behind ; I fumed and sweated and charged and ranted till I was hoarse 
and sick, and frantic and furious ; but I never moved him once — I never started 
a smile or a tear ! Never a ghost of a smile, and never a suspicion of moisture! 
I was astounded. I closed the lecture at last with one despairing shriek — with 
one wild burst of humor, and hurled a joke of supernatural atrocity full at him! 

Then I sat down bewildered and exhausted. 

The president of the society came up and bathed my head with cold water, 
and said : " What made you carry on so towards the last ? " 

I said : '* I was trying to make that confounded old fool laugh, in the second 
row." 

And he said : " Well, you were wasting your time, because he is deaf and 
dumb, and as blind as a badger ! " 

Now, was that any way for that old man's nephew to impose on a stranger 
and orphan like me ? I ask you as a man an<J brother, if that was anj way for 
him to do ? 




brush as his pipe-stem. Then he begins to loll — for a person who can consent 
to loaf his useless life away in ignominious indolence has not the energy to sit 

9 8 



THE OFFICE BORE. 99 



up straight. He stretches full length on the sofa awhile; then draws up to half- 
length ; then gets into a chair, hangs his head back and his arms abroad, and 
stretches his legs till the rims of his boot-heels rest upon the floor ; by and by 
sits up and leans forward, with one leg or both over the arm of the chair. But 
it is still observable that with all his changes of position, he never assumes the 
upright or a fraudful affectation of dignity. From time to time he yawns, and 
stretches, and scratches himself with a tranquil, mangy enjoyment, and now 
and then he grunts a kind of stuffy, overfed grunt, which is full of animal con- 
tentment. At rare and long intervals, however, he sighs a sigh that is the 
eloquent expression of a secret confession, to wit : " I am useless and a nuisance, 
a cumberer of the earth." The bore and his comrades — for there are usually 
from two to four on hand, day and night — mix into the conversation when men 
come in to see the editors for a moment on business; they hold noisy talks 
among themselves about politics in particular, and all other subjects in general 
— even warming up, after a fashion, sometimes, and seeming to take almost a 
real interest in what they are discussing. They ruthlessly call an editor 
from his work with such a remark as: "Did you see this, Smith, in the 
* Gazette?'" and proceed to read the paragraph while the sufferer reins in his 
impatient pen and listens : they often loll and sprawl round the office hour after 
hour, swapping anecdotes, and relating personal experiences to each other — 
hairbreadth escapes, social encounters with distinguished men, election reminis- 
cences, sketches of odd characters, etc. And through all those hours they never 
seem to comprehend that they are robbing the editors of their time, and the 
public of journalistic excellence in next day's paper. At other times they 
drowse, or dreamily pore over exchanges, or droop limp and pensive over the 
chair-arms for an hour. Even this solemn silence is small respite to the editor, 
for the next uncomfortable thing to having people look over his shoulders, 
perhaps, is to have them sit by in silence and listen to the scratching of his pen. 
If a body desires to talk private business with one of the editors, he must call 
him outside, for no hint milder than blasting powder or nitro-glycerine would 
be likely to move the bores out of listening distance. To have to sit and endure 
the presence of a bore day after day ; to feel your cheerful spirits begin to sink 
as his footstep sounds on the stair, and utterly vanish away as his' tiresome form 



LofC. 



IOO MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

enters the door; to suffer through his anecdotes and die slowly to his reminis- 
cences ; to feel always the fetters of his clogging presence ; to long hopelessly for 
one single day's privacy ; to note with a shudder, by and by, that to contemplate 
his funeral in fancy has ceased to soothe, to imagine him undergoing in strict 
and fearful detail the tortures of the ancient Inquisition has lost its power to 
satisfy the heart, and that even to wish him millions and millions and millions 
of miles in Tophet is able to bring only a fitful gleam of joy; to have to endure 
all this, day after day, and week after week, and month after month, is an afflic- 
tion that transcends any other that men suffer. Physical pain is pastime to it, 
and hanging a pleasure excursion. 



JOHNNY GREER. 



«^Tp^HE church was densely crowded that lovely summer Sabbath," said 
the Sunday-school superintendent, "and all, as their eyes rested upon 
the small coffin, seemed impressed by the poor black boy's fate. 
Above the stillness the pastor's voice rose, and chained the interest of every ear 
as he told, with many an envied compliment, how that the brave, noble, daring 
little Johnny Greer, when he saw the drowned body sweeping down toward the 
deep part of the river whence the agonized parents never could have recovered 
it in this world, gallantly sprang into the stream, and at the risk of his life 
towed the corpse to shore, and held it fast till help came and secured it. Johnny 
Greer was sitting just in front of me. A ragged street boy, with eager eye, 
turned upon him instantly, and said in a hoarse whisper— 

"'No ; but did you, though?* 

"'Yes.' 

"'Towed the carkiss ashore and saved it yo'self?' 

"'Yes.' 

" ' Cracky ! What did they give you V 

«< Nothing.' 

"'W-h-a-t! [with intense disgust] D'you know what I'd a done? I'd a 
anchored him out in the* stream, and said, Five dollars, genU, or you earrit have yo y 
trigger.' H 





HE FACTS IN 1HE CASE OF THE GREAT BEEF 

CONTRACT. 

In as few words as possible I wish to lay before the nation what 
share, howsoever small, I have had in this matter — this matter 
which has so exercised the public mind, engendered so much 
ill-feeling, and so filled the newspapers of both continents with 
distorted statements and extravagant comments. 

The origin of this distressful thing was this — and I assert here 
that every fact in the following resume can be amply proved by 
the official records of the General Government : — 
John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung county, New Jersey, de- 
ceased, contracted with the General Government, on or about the ioth day of 
October, 1861, to furnish to General Sherman the sum total of thirtv barrels 
of beef. 
Very well. 

He started after Sherman with the beef, but when he got to Washington 
Sherman had gone to Manassas ; so he took the beef and followed him there, 

101 



102 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



but arrived too late; he followed him to Nashville, and from Nashville to 
Chattanooga, and from Chattanooga to Atlanta — but he never could overtake 
him. At Atlanta he took a fresh start and followed him clear through his 

march to the sea. He arrived too late 

again by a few ^^^^^^^^§"^^^^^^^^^>^^^^§_ days; but hearing 
that Sherman was ^^^^fS^^tejS^^^^^^^^^^^^^. going out in the 
Quaker City excur- ^^^^^^^^Sfe^^^^^^^^^fe s ^ on to tne Holy 

his beef, he learned '^^^^^W^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^- tnat Sherman had 

ahawked and scalped, and the 

Indians got the beef. They got all of it but one barrel. Sherman's army 
captured that, and so even in death, the bold navigator partly fulfilled his con- 
tract. In his will, which he had kept like a journal, he bequeathed the contract to 
his son Bartholomew W. Bartholomew W. made out the following bill, and 
then died : — 

The Unitfd States 

In account with John Wilson Mackensie, of New Jersey, deceased... Dr. 

To thirty barrels of beef for General Sherman, at $100 $3,000 

To traveling expenses and transportation 14,000 

Total $17,000 

Rec'd Pay't. 

He died then ; but he left the contract to Wm. J. Martin, who tried to collect 



THE GREAT BEEF CONTRACT 



103 



it, but died before he got through. He left it to Barker J. Allen, and he tried 
to collect it also. He did not survive. Barker J. Allen left it to Anson G. 
Rogers, who attempted to collect it, and got along as far as the Ninth Auditor's 
Office, when Death the great Leveller, came all unsummoned, and foreclosed on 
him also. He left the bill to a relative of his in Connecticut, Vengeance Hop- 
kins by name, who lasted four weeks and two days, and made the best time on 
record, coming within one of reaching the Twelfth Auditor. In his will he gave 
the contract bill to his uncle, by the name of O-be-joyful Johnson. It was too 
undermining for Joyful. His last words were: "Weep not for me — / am 



willing to go.'' 
poor soul. Seven 
the contract after 
died. So it came 
last. It fell to me 
by the name of 
lehem Hubbard, of 
had a gru dge 
long time; but in 
he sent for me, and 
thing, and, weep- 
beef contract, 
history of it up to 
ceeded to the prop- 
en dea v o r to set 
before the nation 
concerns my share 




And so he was, 
people inherited 
that; but they all 
into my hands at 
through a relative 
Hubbard — B eth- 
Indiana. He had 
against me for a 
his last moments 
forgave me every- 
ing gave m e the 
This ends the 
the time that I suc- 
erty. I will now 
myself straight 
in everything that 
i n the matter. I 



took this beef contract, and the bill for mileage and transportation, to the Pres- 
ident of the United States. 

He said, " Well, sir, what can I do for you ? " 

I said, " Sire, on or about the 10th day of October, 1861, John Wilson Mac- 
kenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung county, New Jersey, deceased, contracted with 
the General Government to furnish to General Sherman the sum total of thirty 
barrels of beef " 



104 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

He stopped me there, and dismissed me from his presence — kindly, but firmly. 
The next day I called on the Secretary of State. 

He said, "Well, sir?" 

I said, "Your Royal Highness: on or about the ioth day of October, 1861, 
John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung county, New Jersey, deceased, 
contracted with the General Government to furnish to General Sherman the 
sum total of thirty barrels of beef " 

" That will do, sir — that will do ; this office has nothing to do with contracts 
for beef." 

" I was bowed out. I thought the matter all over, and finally, the following 
day, I visited the Secretary of the Navy, who said, " Speak quickly, sir; do not 
keep me waiting." 

I said, "Your Royal Highness, on or about the ioth day of October, 1861, 
John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung county, New Jersey, deceased, 
contracted with the General Government to furnish to General Sherman the 
sum total of thirty barrels of beef " 

Well, it was as far as I could get. He had nothing to do with beef contracts 
for General Sherman either. I began to think it was a curious kind of a 
Government. It looks somewhat as if they wanted to get out of paying for that 
beef. The following day I went to the Secretary of the Interior. 

I said, "Your Imperial Highness, on or about the ioth day of October — " 

" That is sufficient, sir. I have heard of you before. Go, take your infamous 
beef contract out of this establishment. The Interior Department has nothing 
whatever to do with subsistence for the army." 

I went away. But I was exasperated now. I said I would haunt them ; I 
would infest every department of this iniquitous Government till that contract 
business was settled. I would collect that bill, or fall, as fell my predecessors, 
trying. I assailed the Postmaster-General ; I besieged the Agricultural Depart- 
ment ; I waylaid the Speaker of the House of Representatives. They had nothing 
to do with army contracts for beef. I moved upon the Commissioner of the 
Patent Office. 

I said, " Your August Excellency, on or about " 



THE GREAT BEEF CONTRACT. 105 

" Perdition ! have you got here with your incendiary beef contract, at last ? 
We have nothing to do with beef contracts for the army, my dear sir." 

" Oh, that is all very well — but somebody has got to pay for that beef. It has 
got to be paid now, too, or I'll confiscate this old Patent Office and everything 
in it." 

" But, my dear sir " 

" It don't make any difference, sir. The Patent Office is liable for that beef, 
I reckon ; and, liable or not liable, the Patent Office has got to pay for it." 

Never mind the details. It ended in a fight. The Patent Office won. But I 
found out something to my advantage. I was told that the Treasury Depart- 
ment was the proper place for me to go to. I went there. I waited two hours 
and a half, and then I was admitted to the First Lord of the Treasury. 

I said, " Most noble, grave, and reverend Signor, on or about the 10th day of 
October, 1861, John Wilson Macken " 

" That is sufficient, sir. I have heard of you. Go to the First Auditor of the 
Treasury." 

I did so. He sent me to the Second Auditor. The Second Auditor sent me 
to the Third, and the Third sent me to the First Comptroller of the Corn-Beef 
Division. This began to look like business. He examined his books and all 
his loose papers, but found no minute of the beef contract. I went to the Second 
Comptroller of the Corn-Beef Division. He examined his books and his loose 
papers, but with no success. I was encouraged. During that week I got as far 
as the Sixth Comptroller in that division ; the* next week I got through the 
Claims Department ; the third week I began and completed the Mislaid Con- 
tracts Department, and got a foothold in the Dead Reckoning Department. I 
finished that in three days. There was only one place left for it now. I laid 
siege to the Commissioner of Odds and Ends. To his clerk, rather — he was not 
there himself. There were sixteen beautiful young ladies in the room, writing 
in books, and there were seven well-favored young clerks showing them how. 
The young women smiled up over their shoulders, and the clerks smiled back 
at them, and all went merry as a marriage bell. Two or three clerks that were 
reading tne newspapers looked at me rather hard, but went on reading, and 



106 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

nobody said anything. However, I had been used to this kind of alacrity from 
Fourth-Assistant-Junior Clerks all through my eventful career, from the very 
day I entered the first office of the Corn-Beef Bureau clear till I passed out of 
the last one in the Dead Reckoning Division. I had got so accomplished by 
this time that I could stand on one foot from the moment I entered an office till 
a clerk spoke to me, without changing more than two, or maybe three times. 

So I stood there till I had changed four different times. Then I said to one of 
the clerks who was reading — 

" Illustrious Vagrant, where is the Grand Turk ? " 

" What do you mean, sir ? whom do you mean ? If you mean the Chief of the 
Bureau, he is out." 

" Will he visit the harem to-day ? " 

The young man glared upon me awhile, and then went on reading his paper. 
But I knew the ways of those clerks. I knew I was safe if he got through before 
another New York mail arrived. He only had two more papers left. After 
awhile he finished them, and then he yawned and asked me what I wanted. 

*' Renowned and honored Imbecile : On or about " 

" You are the beef contract man. Give me your papers." 

He took them, and for a long time he ransacked his odds and ends. Finally 
he found the North-West Passage, as / regarded it — he found the long-lost 
record of that beef contract — he found the rock upon which so many of my 
ancestors had split before they ever got to it. I was deeply moved. And yet I 
rejoiced — for I had survived. I said with emotion, " Give it me. The Govern- 
ment will settle now." He waved me back, and said there was something yet to 
be done first. 

"Where is this John Wilson Mackenzie?" said he. 

" Dead." 

"When did he die?" 

" He didn't die at all — he was killed." 

" How ? " 

" Tomahawked." 

" Who tomahawked him ? " 



THE GREAT BEEF CONTRACT. 107 

" Why, an Indian, of course. You didn't suppose it was the superintendent of 
a Sunday-school, did you ? " 

"No. An Indian, was it?" 

"The same." 

" Name of the Indian ? " 

" His name ? / don't know his name." 

" Must have his name. Who saw the tomahawking done ? " 

" I don't know." 

" You were not present yourself, then ? " 

" Which you can see by my hair. I was absent.' , 

"Then how do you know that Mackenzie is dead ? " 

" Because he certainly died at that time, and I have every reason to believe 
that he has been dead ever since. I know he has, in fact." 

"We must have proofs. Have you got the Indian ? " 

" Of course not." 

" Well, you must get him. Have you got the tomahawk ? " 

" I never thought of such a thing." 

" You must get the tomahawk. You must produce the Indian and the toma- 
hawk. If Mackenzie's death can be proven by these, you can then go before the 
commission appointed to audit claims with some show of getting your bill under 
such headway that your children may possibly live to receive the money and 
enjoy it. But that man's death must be proven. However, I may as well tell 
you that the Government will never pay that transportation and those traveling 
expenses of the lamen r ed Mackenzie. It may possibly pay for the barrel of beef 
that Sherman's soldiers captured, if you can get a relief bill through Congress 
making an appropriation for that purpose ; but it will not pay for the twenty- 
nine barrels the Indians ate." 

" Then there is only a hundred dollars due me, and that isn't certain ! After 
all Mackenzie's travels in Europe, Asia, and America with that beef; after all 
his trials and tribulations and transportation ; after the slaughter of all those 
innocents that tried to collect that bill ! Young man, why didn't the First 
Comptroller of the Corn-Beef Division tell me this." 



(Ofl MARK T KETCHa 

■ He didn't know anything about the genuineness : f y .r daim." 

^rrond tell me? why didn't the Third? why didn't all th 
us and departments tell me 

'• None of them kne-v. We do thin^ -outine here. You have followed 

jutine and found out what you wanted to know. It is the best way. It is 
the only way. It is very regular, and very slow, but it is very certair ..** 

•• Yes. certain death. It has been, to the most of our tribe. I begin to feel 
that I. too. am called- Young man, you love the bright creature yonder i 
the gentle blue eyes and the steel pens behind her ears — I see it in your soft 
glan : u wish to marry her — but you are poor. Here, hold out your hand 

— here is the beef contract : go, take her and be happy ! Heaven bless you, my 
childrer. 

This is ail I know about the great beef contract, that has created so much talk 
in the community. The clerk to whom I bequeathed it died- I know nothing 
further about the contract, or any one connected with it. I only know that if a 
man lives long enough he can trace a thing through the Circumlocution Office 
::" Washington, and find out, after much labor and trouble and delay, that which 
he could have found out on the first day if the business of the Circumlocution 
Office were as ingenious. rmatized as it would be if it were agnal 

mercantile institution. 




wild extravaganza, like 
Williamson Mackenzie's Great 
Beef Contract," but is a plain state- 
ment of facts and circumstances with 
which the Congress of the United 
States has interested itself from time 
to time during the long period of half 
a century. 

I will not call this matter of George 
Fished a greajt deathless and unre- 
lenting swindle upon the Government 
and people of the United States' — for 



* Some vears ago, «"hen *&> **$ &r& published, few people believed it, bat considered it a mere 
e*travagan*a. In tfeeac latter days it sextos hard to reali#6 that ikej* was ever a time when the 

TOO i 



HO MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

it has never been so decided, and I hold that it is a grave and solemn wrong for a 
writer to cast slurs or call names when such is the case — but will simply present 
the evidence and let the reader deduce his own verdict. Then we shall do nobody 
injustice, and our consciences shall be clear. 

On or about the ist day of September 1813, the Creek war being then in progress 
in Florida, the crops, herds, and houses of Mr. George Fisher, a citizen, were 
destroyed, either by the Indians or by the United States troops in pursuit of them. 
By the terms of the law, if the Indians destroyed the property, there was no relief 
for Fisher; but if the troops destroyed it, the Government of the United States was 
debtor to Fisher for the amount involved. 

George Fisher must have considered that the Indians destroyed the property, 
because, although he lived several years afterward, he does not appear to have ever 
made any claim upon the Government. 

In the course of time Fisher died, and his widow married again. And by and 
by, nearly twenty years after that dimly-remembered raid upon Fisher's cornfields, 
the widow Fisher's new husband petitioned Congress for pay for the property, and 
backed up the petition with many depositions and affidavits which purported to 
prove that the troops, and not the Indians, destroyed the property ; that the troops, 
for some inscrutable reason, deliberately burned down " houses " (or cabins) valued 
at $600, the same belonging to a peaceable private citizen, and also destroyed 
various other property belonging to the same citizen. But Congress declined to 
believe that the troops were such idiots (after overtaking and scattering a band of 
Indians proved to have been found destroying Fisher's property) as to calmly 
continue the work of destruction themselves, and make a complete job of what the 
Indians had only commenced. So Congress denied the petition of the heirs of 
George Fisher in 1832, and did not pay them a cent. 

We hear no more from them officially until 1848, sixteen years after their first 
attempt on the Treasury, and a full generation after the death of the man whose 



robbing of our government was a novelty. The very man who showed' me where to find the docu- 
ments for this case was at that very time spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in Washington 
for a mail steamship concern, in the effort to procure a subsidy for the company — a fact which was a 
long time in coming to the surface, but leaked out at last and underwent Congressional 
investigation^ 



THE CASE OF GEORGE FISHER. in 

fields were destroyed. The new generation of Fisher heirs then came forward and 
put in a bill for damages. The Second Auditor awarded them $8,873, being half 
the damage sustained by Fisher. The Auditor said the testimony showed that at 
least half the destruction was done by the Indians "before the troops started in pur- 
suit" and of course the Government was not responsible for that half. 

2. That was in April, 1848. In December 1848, the heirs of George Fisher, 
deceased, came forward and pleaded for a " revision " of their bill of damages. 
The revision was made, but nothing new could be found in their favor except an 
error of $100 in the former calculation. However, in order to keep up the spirits 
of the Fisher family, the Auditor concluded to go back and allow interest from the 
date of the first petition (1832) to the date when the bill of damages was awarded. 
This sent the Fishers home happy with sixteen years' interest on $8,873 — tne same 
amounting to $8,997.94. Total, $17,870.94. 

3. For an entire year the suffering Fisher family remained quiet — even satisfied, 
after a fashion. Then they swooped down upon Government with their wrongs 
once more. That old patriot, Attorney-General Toucey, burrowed through the 
musty papers of the Fishers and discovered one more chance for the desolate 
orphans — interest on that original award of $8,873 from date of destruction of the 
property (1813) up to 1832 ! Result, $10,004.89 for the indigent Fishers. So 
now we have : — First, $8,873 damages; second, interest on it from 1832 to 1848, 
$8,997.94; third, interest on it dated back to 1813, $10,004.89. Total, $27,875.83! 
What better investment for a great-grandchild than to get the Indians to burn a 
cornfield for him sixty or seventy years before his birth, and plausibly lay it on- 
lunatic United States troops ? 

4. Strange as it may seem, the Fishers let Congress alone for five years — or, 
what is perhaps more likely, failed to make themselves heard by Congress for that 
length of time. But at last in 1854, they got a hearing. Tlv y persuaded Congress 
to pass an act requiring the Auditor to re-examine their case. But this time they 
stumbled upon the misfortune of an honest Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. James 
Guthrie), and he spoiled everything. He said in very plain language that the 
Fishers were not only not entitled to another cent, but that those children of many 
sorrows and acquainted with grief had been paid too much already. 



112 



MARK TWAIX'S SKETCHES. 



-. Therefore another interval of rest and silence ensued — an interval which 
lasted four years — viz., till 1858. The "right man in the right place "was then 
Secretary of War — John B. Floyd, of peculiar renown ! Here was a master intel- 
lect ; here was the very man to succor the suffering heirs of dead and forgotten 
ler. They came up from Florida with a rush — a great tidal wave of Fishers 
freighted with the same old musty documents about the same immortal cornfields 
of their ancestor. They straightway got an Act passed transferring the Fisher 
matter from the dull Auditor to the ingenious Floyd. "What did Floyd do ? He 
said, " it was proved that the Indians destroyed everything they could before the 
troops entered in pursuit '." He considered, therefore, that what they destroyed must 
have consisted of " the houses with all their contents, and the liquor " (the most trifling 
part of the destruction, and set down at only §3200 all told), and that the Govern- 
ment troops then drove them off and calmly proceeded to destroy — 

Two hundred and twenty acres of corn in the field, thirty-five acres of wheat, and 
nine hundred and eighty-six head of live stock ! [What a singularly intelligent army 
we had in those days, according to Mr. Floyd — though not according to the 
Congress of 1832.] 

- Mr. Floyd decided that the Government was not responsible for that §3200 
worth of rubbish which the Indians destroyed, but was responsible for the property 
destroyed by the troops — which property consisted of (I quote from the printed 
United States Senate document) — 

Dollars. 



Corn at Bassett's Creel-: 


3,000 


Cattle ...... 


5>ooo 


Stock hogs ...... 


1.050 


Drove hogs ..... 


1,204 


Wheat ...... 


350 


Hides ...... 


4,000 


Cora on the Alabama River ... . , 


3-300 



1W1 



18,104 



That sura, in his report, Mr. Floyd calls the u fnll value of the property destroyed 
by the troops." He allows th£t sunt, to the starving Fishers, together with 



THE CASE OF GEORGE FISHER. 



"$ 



interest from 1813. From this new sum total the amounts already paid to the 
Fishers were deducted, and then the cheerful remainder (a fraction under forty 
thousand dollars) was handed to them, and again they retired to Florida in a condi- 
tion of temporary tranquility. Their ancestor's farm had now yielded them, 
altogether, nearly sixty-seven thousand dollars in cash. 

6. Does the reader suppose that that was the end of it ? Does he suppose those 
diffident Fishers were satisfied? Let the evidence show. The Fishers were quiet 
just two years. Then they came swarming up out of the fertile swamps of Florida 
with their same old documents, and besieged Congress once more. Congress 




capitulated on the first of June, i860, and instructed Mr. Floyd to overhaul those 
papers again and pay that bill. A Treasury clerk was ordered to go through those 
papers and report to Mr. Floyd what amount was still due the emaciated Fishers. 
This clerk (I caa produce him whenever he is wanted) discovered what was appar- 
ently a glaring and recent forgery in the papers, whereby a witness's testimony as 
8 



114 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

to the price of corn in Florida in 1813 was made to name double the amount which 
fhat witness had originally specified as the price ! The clerk not only called his 
superior's attention to this thing, but in making up his brief of the case called par- 
ticular attention to it in writing. That part of the brief never got before Congress f 
nor has Congress ever yet had a hint of a forgery existing among the Fisher papers. 
Nevertheless, on the basis of the double prices (and totally ignoring the clerk's 
assertion that the figures were manifestly and unquestionably a recent forgery), Mr. 
Floyd remarks in his new report that " the testimony, particularly in regard to the 
corn crops demands a much higher allowance than any heretofore made by the 
Auditor or myself." So he estimates the crop at sixty bushels to the acre (double 
what Florida acres produce), and then virtuously allows pay for only half the crop, 
but allows two dollars and a half a bushel for that half, when there are rusty old 
books and documents in the Congressional library to show just what the Fisher 
testimony showed before the forgery — viz., that in the fall of 181 3 corn was only 
worth from $1.25 to $1.50 a bushel. Having accomplished this, what does Mr. 
Floyd do next? Mr. Floyd ("with an earnest desire to execute truly the legislative 
will," as he piously remarks) goes to work and makes out an entirely new bill of 
Fisher damages, and in this new bill he placidly ignores the Indians altogether — 
puts no particle of the destruction of the Fisher property upon them, but, even 
repenting him of charging them with burning the cabins and drinking the whisky 
and breaking the crockery, lays the entire damage at the door of the imbecile 
United States troops, down to the very last item ! And not only that, but uses the 
forgery to double the loss of corn at " Bassett's Creek," and uses it again to abso- 
lutely treble the loss of corn on the " Alabama River." This new and ably con- 
ceived and executed bill of Mr. Floyd's figures up as follows (I copy again from 
the printed U. S. Senate document) : — 

The United States in account with the legal representatives of George Fisher, deceased. 

Dol. C. 
1813. — To 550 head of cattle, at 10 dollars . . . 5,500 00 

To 86 head of drove hogs ...... 1,204 °° 

To 350 head of stock hogs ..... T ,750 00 

To IOO ACRES OF CORN ON BASSETT'S CREEK • • • 6,000 OO 

,■ To 8 barrels of whisky . . • • • • 350 00 



THE CASE OF GEORGE FISHER. 



115 



To 2 barrels of brandy ..... 

To 1 barrel of rum ...... 

To dry goods and merchandise in store 

To 35 acres of wheat ..... 

To 2,000 hides ...... 

To furs and hats in store ..... 

To crockery ware in store ..... 

To smiths' and carpenters' 1 tools .... 

To houses burned and destroyed .... 

To 4 dozen bottles of wine ..... 
1814. — To 120 acres of corn on Alabama River . 

To crops of peas, fodder, etc. .... 

Total ...... 

To interest on $22,202, from July 1813 to November i860 

47 years and 4 months ..... 
To interest on $12,750, from September 1814 to November i860 

46 years and 2 months ..... 

Total . . . 



280 00 
70 00 

1,100 00 
350 00 

4,000 00 
600 00 
100 00 
250 00 
600 00 
48 00 

9,500 00 

3,25000 

34,952 00 
63,053 68 

35.317 50 
133.323 18 



He puts everything in this time. He does not even allow that the Indians 
destroyed the crockery or drank the four dozen bottles of (currant) wine. When it 
came to supernatural comprehensiveness in "gobbling," John B. Floyd was without 
his equal, in his own or any other generation. Subtracting from the above total the 
$67,000 already paid to George Fisher's implacable heirs, Mr. Floyd announced 
that the Government was still indebted to them in the sum of sixty-six thousand five 
hundred and nineteen dollars and eighty-five cents, " which," Mr. Floyd complacently 
remarks, " will be paid, accordingly, to the administrator of the estate of George 
Fisher, deceased, or to his attorney in fact." 

But, sadly enough for the destitute orphans, a new President came in just at this 
time, Buchanan and Floyd went out, and they never got their money. The first 
thing Congress did in 1861 was to rescind the resolution of June 1, 1870, under 
which Mr. Floyd had been ciphering. Then Floyd (and doubtless the heirs of 
George Fisher likewise) had to give up financial business for a while, and go into 
the Confederate army and serve their country. 



Il6 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

Were the heirs of George Fisher killed ? No. They are back now at this very 
time (July 1870), beseeching Congress through that blushing and diffident creature, 
Garrett Davis, to commence making payments again on their interminable and 
insatiable bill of damages for corn and whisky destroyed by a gang of irresponsible 
Indians, so long ago that even government red-tape has failed to keep consistent 
and intelligent track of it. 

Now, the above are facts. They are history. Any one who doubts it can send 
to the Senate Document Department of the Capitol for H. R. Ex. Doc. No. 21, 
36th Congress, 2nd Session, and for S. Ex. Doc. No. 106, 41st. Congress 2nd Ses- 
sion, and satisfy himself. The whole case is set forth in the first volume of the 
Court of Claims Reports. 

It is my belief that as long as the continent of America holds together, the heirs 
of George Fisher, deceased, will still make pilgrimages to Washington from the 
swamps of Florida, to plead for just a little more cash on their bill of damages 
(even when they received the last of that sixty-seven thousand dollars, they said it 
was only one-fourth what the Government owed them on that fruitful corn-field), 
and as long as they choose to come, they will find Garrett Davises to drag their 
vampire schemes before Congress. This is not the only hereditary fraud (if fraud 
it is — which I have before repeatedly remarked is not proven) that is being quietly 
handed down from generation to generation of fathers and sons, through the perse- 
cuted Treasury of the United States. 



DISGRACEFUL PERSECUTION OF A BOY. 

IN San Francisco, the other day, "A well-dressed boy, on his way to Sunday- 
school, was arrested and thrown into the city prison for stoning Chinamen." 
What a commentary is this upon human justice ! What sad prominence it 
gives to our human disposition to tyrannize over the weak ! San Francisco has 
little right to take credit to herself for her treatment of this poor boy. What 
had the child's education been ? How should he suppose it was wrong to stone 
a Chinamen ? Before we side against him, along with outraged San Francisco, 
let us give him a chance— let us hear the testimony for the defence. 

He was a " well-dressed " boy, and a Sunday-school scholar, and therefore, 
the chances are that his parents were intelligent, well-to-do people, with just 
enough natural villainy in their composition to make them yearn after the 
daily papers, and enjoy them; and so this boy had opportunities to learn all 
through the week how to do right, as well as on Sunday. 

It was in this way that he found out that the great commonwealth of Califor- 
nia imposes an unlawful mining-tax upon John the foreigner, and allows Pat- 
rick the foreigner to dig gold for nothing — probably because the degraded 
Mongol is at no expense for whisky, and the refined Celt cannot exist without it. 

It was in this way that he found out that a respectable number of the tax- 
gatherers — it would be unkind to say all of them — collect the tax twice, instead 
of once; and that, inasmuch as they do it solely to discourage Chinese immigra- 
tion into the mines, it is a thing that is much applauded, and likewise regarded 
as being singularly facetious. 

117 



Ii8 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

It was in this way that he found out that when a white man robs a sluice-box 
(by the term white man is meant Spaniards, Mexicans, Portuguese, Irish, Hon- 
durans, Peruvians, Chileans, &c, &c), they make him leave the camp ; and when 
a Chinaman does that thing, they hang him. ' 

It was in this way that he found out that in many districts of the vast Pacific 
coast, so strong is the wild, free love of justice in the hearts of the people, that 
whenever any secret and mysterious crime is committed, they say, " Let justice 
be done, though the heavens fall," and go straightway and swing a Chinaman. 

It was in this way that he found out that by studying one half of each day's 
"local items," it would appear that the police of San Francisco were either 
asleep or dead, and by studying the other half it would seem that the reporters 
were gone mad with admiration of the energy, the virtue, the high effectiveness, 
and the dare-devil intrepidity of that very police — making exultant mention of 
how " the Argus-eyed officer So-and-so," captured a wretched knave of a China- 
man who was stealing chickens, and brought him gloriously to the city prison; 
and how " the gallant officer Such-and-such-a-one," quietly kept an eye on the 
movements of an "unsuspecting, almond-eyed son of Confucius " (your reporter 
is nothing if not facetious), following him around with that far-off look of 
vacancy and unconsciousness always so finely affected by that inscrutible being, 
the forty-dollar policeman, during a waking interval, and captured him at last 
in the very act of placing his hands in a suspicious manner upon a paper of 
tacks, left by the owner in an exposed situation; and how one officer performed 
this prodigious thing, and another officer that, and another the other — and 
pretty much every one of these performances having for a dazzling central 
incident a Chinaman guilty of a shilling's worth of crime, an unfortunate, whose 
misdemeanor must be hurraed into something enormous in order to keep the 
public from noticing how many really important rascals went uncaptured in 
the meantime, and how overrated those glorified policemen actually are. 

It was in this way that the boy found out that the Legislature, being aware 
that the Constitution has made America an asylum for the poor and the 
oppressed of all nations, and that, therefore, the poor and oppressed who fly to 
our shelter must not be charged a disabling admission fee, made a law that 



DISGRACEFUL PERSECUTION OF A BOY. 119 



every Chinman, upon landing, must be vaccinated upon the wharf, and pay to 
the State's appointed officer ten dollars for the service, when there are plenty of 
doctors in San Francisco who would be glad enough to do it for him for fifty 

cents. 

It was in this way that the boy found out that a Chinaman had no rights 
that any man was bound to respect ; that he had no sorrows that any man was 
bound to pity; that neither his life nor his liberty was worth the purchase of a 
penny when a white man needed a scapegoat; that nobody loved Chinamen, 
nobody befriended them, nobody spared them suffering when it was convenient 
to inflict it; everybody, individuals, communities, the majesty of the State itself, 
joined in hating, abusing, and persecuting these humble strangers. 

And, therefore, what could have been more natural than for this sunny-hearted 
boy, tripping along to Sunday-school, with his mind teeming with freshly- 
learned incentives to high and virtuous action, to say to himself — 

" Ah, there goes a Chinaman ! God will not love me if I do not stone him." 

And for this he was arrested and put in the city jail. 

Everything conspired to teach him that it was a high and holy thing to stone 
a Chinaman, and yet he no sooner attempts to do his duty that he is punished 
for it — he, poor chap, who has been aware all his life that one of the principal 
recreations of the police, out toward the Gold Refinery, is to look on with 
tranquil enjoyment while the butchers of Brannan Street set their dogs on un- 
offending Chinamen, and make them flee for their lives. * 

Keeping in mind the tuition in the humanities which the entire " Pacific 
coast" gives its youth, there is a very sublimity of incongruity in the virtuous 
flourish with which the good city fathers of San Francisco proclaim (as they 



* I have many such memories in my mind, but am thinking just at present of one particular one, 
where the Brannan Street butchers set their dogs on a Chinaman who was quietly passing with a 
basket of clothes on his head ; and while the dogs mutilated his flesh, a butcher increased the 
hilarity of the occasion by knocking some of the Chinaman's teeth down his throat with half a brick. 
This incident sticks in my memory with a more malevolent tenacity, perhaps, on account of the 
fact that I was in the employ of a San Francisco journal at the time, and was not allowed to pub- 
lish it because it might offend some of the peculiar element that subscribed for the paper. 



120 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

have lately done) that " The police are positively ordered to arrest all boys, of 
every description and wherever found, who engage in assaulting Chinamen." 

Still, let us be truly glad they have made the order, notwithstanding its 
inconsistency; and let us rest perfectly confident the police are glad, too. 
Because there is no personal peril in arresting boys, provided they be of the 
small kind, and the reporters will have to laud their performances just as loyally 
as ever, or go without items. 

The new form for local items in San Francisco will now be : — " The ever 
vigilant and efficient officer So-and-so succeeded, yesterday afternoon, in arrest- 
ing Master Tommy Jones, after a determined resistance," etc., etc., followed by 
the customary statistics and final hurrah, with its unconscious sarcasm : " We 
are happy in being able to state that this is the forty-seventh boy arrested by 
this gallant officer since the new ordinance went into effect. The most extraor- 
dinary activity prevails in the police department. Nothing like it has been seen 
since we can remember." 




I 



THE JUDGE'S "SPIRITED WOMAN." 

WAS sitting here," said the judge, " in this old pulpit, holding court, and we 
were trying a big, wicked-looking Spanish desperado for killing the husband 
of a bright, pretty Mexican woman. It was a lazy summer day, and an awfully 
long one, and the witnesses were tedious. None of us took any interest in the trial 
except that nervous, uneasy devil of a Mexican woman — because you know how 
they love and how they hate, and this one had loved her husband with all her 
might, and now she had boiled it all down into hate, and stood here spitting it at that 
Spaniard with her eyes ; and I tell you she would stir me up, too, with a little of her 
summer lightning, occasionally. Well, I had my coat off and my heels up, lolling 
and sweating, and smoking one of those cabbage cigars the San Francisco people 
used to think were good enough for us in those times ; and the lawyers they all had 
their coats off, and were smoking and whittling, and the witnesses the same, and so 
was the prisoner. Well, the fact is, there warn't any interest in a murder trial then, 
because the fellow was always brought in " not guilty," the jury expecting him to do 
as much for them some time ; and, although the evidence was straight and square 

121 



122 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

against this Spaniard, we knew we could not convict him without seeming to be 
rather high-handed and sort of reflecting on every gentleman in the community ; 
for there warn't any carriages and liveries then, and so the only ' style ' there was, 
was to keep your private graveyard. But that woman seemed to have her heart set 
on hanging that Spaniard; and you'd ought to have seen how she would glare on 
him a minute, and then look up at me in her pleading way, and then turn and for 
the next five minutes search the jury's faces, and by and by drop her face in her 
hands for just a little while as if she was most ready to give up ; but out she'd 
come again directly, and be as live and anxious as ever. But when the jury 
announced the verdict — Not Guilty, and I told the prisoner he was acquitted and 
free to go, that woman rose up till she appeared *to be as tall and grand as a seventy- 
four-gun-ship, and says she — 

"'Judge, do I understand you to say that this man is not guilty, that murdered 
my husband without any cause before my own eyes and my little children's, and 
that all has been done to him that ever justice and the law can do ? " 

" ' The same,' says I. 

" And then what do you reckon she did ? Why, she turned on that smirking 
Spanish fool like a wild cat, and out with a ' navy ' and shot him dead in open court !" 

" That was spirited, I am willing to admit." 

" Wasn't it, though ? " said the judge admiringly. " I wouldn't have missed it 
for anything. I adjourned court right on the spot, and we put on our coats and 
went out and took up a collection for her and her cubs, and sent them over the 
mountains to their friends. Ah, she was a spirited wench ! " » 




INFORMATION WANTED. 

" Washington, Decc?>iber 10, 1867. 

OULD you give me any infor- 
mation respecting such islands, 
if any, as the Government is 
going to purchase ? " 

It is an uncle of mine that wants to 
know. He is an industrious man and 
well-disposed, and wants to make a 
living in an honest, humble way, but 
more especially he wants to be quiet. 
He wishes to settle down, and be quiet 
and unostentatious. He has been to 
the new island St. Thomas, but he 
says he thinks things are unsettled 
there. He went there early with an attache of the State department, who was sent 

down with money to pay for the island. My uncle had his money in the same 

123 



124 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



box, and so when they went ashore, getting a receipt, the sailors broke open the box 
and took all the money, not making any distinction between Government money, 
which was legitimate money to be stolen, and my uncle's, which was his own 
private property, and should have been respected. But he came home and got 
some more and went back. And then he took the fever. There are seven kinds 
of fever down there, you know; and, as his blood was out of order by reason of 
loss of sleep and general wear and tear of mind, he failed to cure the first fever, 
and then somehow he got the other six. He is not a kind of man that enjoys 
fevers, though he is well-meaning and always does what he thinks is right, and so 
he was a good deal annoyed when it appeared he was going to die. 

But he worried through, and got well and started a farm. He fenced it in, and 
the next day that great storm came on and washed the most of it over to Gibralter, 
or around there somewhere. He only said, in his patient way, that it was gone, 
and he wouldn't bother about trying to find out where it went to, though it was his 
opinion it went to Gibralter. 

Then he invested in a mountain, and started a farm up there, so as to be out of 
the way when the sea came ashore again. It was a good mountain, and a good 
farm, but it wasn't any use ; an earthquake came the next night and shook it all 
down. It was all fragments, you know, and so mixed up with another man's 
property, that he could not tell which were his fragments without going to law; and 
he would not do that, because his main object in going to St. Thomas was to be 
quiet. All that he wanted was to settle down and be quiet. 

He thought it all over, and finally he concluded to try the low ground again,, 
especially as he wanted to start a brickyard this time. He bought a flat, and put 
out a hundred thousand bricks to dry preparatory to baking them. But luck 
appeared to be against him. A volcano shoved itself through there that night, and 
elevated his brickyard about two thousand feet in the air. It irritated him a good 
deal. He has been up there, and he says the bricks are all baked right enough, 
but he can't get them down. At first, he thought maybe the Government would 
get the bricks down for him, because since Government bought the island, it ought 
to protect the property where a man has invested in good faith ; but all he wants is 
quiet, and so he is not going to apply for the subsidy he was thinking about. 



INFORMATION WANTED.. 1 25 



He went back there last week in a couple of ships of war, to prospect around the 
coast for a safe place for a farm where he could be quiet ; but a great " tidal wave " 
came, and hoisted both of the ships out into one of the interior counties, and he 
came near losing his life. So he has given up prospecting in a ship, and is 
discouraged. 

Well, now, he don't know what to do. He has tried Alaska; but the bears kept 
after him so much, and kept him so much on the jump, as it were, that he had to 
leave the country. He could not be quiet there with those bears prancing after 
him all the time. That is how he came to go to the new island we have bought — 
St. Thomas. But he is getting to think St. Thomas is not quiet enough for a man 
of his turn of mind, and that is why he wishes me to find out if Government is 
likely to buy some more islands shortly. He has heard that Government is think- 
ing about buying Porto Rico. If that is true, he wishes to try Porto Rico, if it is a 
quiet place. How is Porto Rico for his style of man ? Do you think the Govern- 
ment will buy it? 



FAR 600D0LD BOYS AND GIRLS 





IN THREE PARTS. 



Part First. 



HOW THE ANIMALS OF THE WOOD SENT OUT A 
SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION. 

ONCE the creatures of the forest held a great 
convention and appointed a commission 
consisting of the most illustrious scientists 
among them to go forth, clear beyond the forest 
and out into the unknown and unexplored world, 
to verify the truth of the matters already taught in 



their schools and colleges and also to make discoveries. It was the most imposing 

enterprise of the kind the nation had ever embarked in. True, the government 

126 



FABLES FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLS. 127 

had once sent Dr. Bull Frog, with a picked crew, to hunt for a north-westerly 
passage through the swamp to the right-hand corner of the wood, and had since 
sent out many expeditions to hunt for Dr. Bull Frog; but they never could find 
him, and so government finally gave him up and ennobled his mother to show 
its gratitude for the services her son had rendered to science. And once govern- 
ment sent Sir Grass Hopper to hunt for the sources of the rill that emptied into the 
swamp ; and afterwards sent out many expeditions to hunt for Sir Grass, and at 
last they were successful — they found his body, but if he had discovered the sources 
meantime, he did not let on. So government acted handsomely by deceased, and 
many envied his funeral. 

But these expeditions were trifles compared with the present one ; for this one 
comprised among its servants the very greatest among the learned ; and besides it 
was to go to the utterly unvisited regions believed to lie beyond the mighty forest 
— as we have remarked before. How the members were banqueted, and glorified, 
and talked about ! Everywhere that one of them showed himself, straightway 
there was a crowd to gape and stare at him. 

Finally they set off, and it was a sight to see the long procession of dry-land 
Tortoises heavily laden with savans, scientific instruments, Glow-Worms and Fire- 
Flies for signal-service, provisions, Ants and Tumble-Bugs to fetch and carry and 
delve, Spiders to carry the surveying chain and do other engineering duty, and so 
forth and so on ; and after the Tortoises came another long train of iron-clads — 
stately and spacious Mud Turtles for marine transportation service ; and from every 
Tortoise and every Turtle flaunted a flaming gladiolus or other splendid banner; 
at the head of the column a great band of Bumble-Bees, Mosquitoes, Katy-Dids 
and Crickets discoursed martial music ; and the entire train was under the escort 
and protection of twelve picked regiments of the Army Worm. 

At the end of three weeks the expedition emerged from the forest and looked 
upon the great Unknown World. Their eyes were greeted with an impressive 
spectacle. A vast level plain stretched before them, watered by a sinuous stream ; 
and beyond, there towered up against the sky a long and lofty barrier of some kind, 
they did not know what. The Tumble-Bug said he believed it was simply land 
tilted up on its edge, because he knew he could see trees on it. But Prof. Snail 
and the others said : 



128 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

"You are hired to dig, sir — that is all. We need your muscle, not your brains. 
When we want your opinion on scientific matters, we will hasten to let you know. 
Your coolness, is intolerable, too — loafing about here meddling with august matters 
of learning, when the other laborers are pitching camp. Go along and help handle 
the baggage." 

The Tumble-Bug turned on his heel uncrushed, unabashed, observing to himself, 
" If it isn't land tilted up, let me die the death of the unrighteous." 

Professor Bull Frog, (nephew of the late explorer,) said he believed the ridge 
was the wall that enclosed the earth. He continued: 

" Our fathers have left us much learning, but they had not traveled far, and so 
we may count this a noble new discovery. We are safe for renown, now, even 
though our labors began and ended with this single achievement. I wonder what 
this wall is built of? Can it be fungus? Fungus is an honorable good thing to 
build a wall of." 

Professor Snail adjusted his field-glass and examined the rampart critically. 
Finally he said : 

"The fact that it is not diaphanous, convinces me that it is a dense vapor formed 
by the calorification of ascending moisture dephlogisticated by refraction. A few 
endiometrical experiments would confirm this, but it is not necessary. — The thing 
is obvious." 

So he shut up his glass and went into his shell to make a note of the discovery 
of the world's end, and the nature of it. 

"Profound mind!" said Professor Angle-Worm to Professor Field-Mouse; "pro- 
found mind ! nothing can long remain a mystery to that august brain." 

Night drew on apace, the sentinel crickets were posted, the Glow Worm and 
Fire-Fly lamps were lighted, and the camp sank to silence and sleep. After 
breakfast in the morning, the expedition moved on. About noon a great avenue 
was reached, which had in it two endless parallel bars of some kind of hard black 
substance, raised the height of the tallest Bull Frog above the general level. The 
scientists climbed up on these and examined and tested them in various ways. 
They walked along them for a great distance, but found no end and no break in 
them. They could arrive at no decision. There was nothing in the records of 



FABLES FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLS. 



129 



science that mentioned anything of this kind. But at last the bald and venerable 
geographer, Professor Mud Turtle, a person who, born poor, and of a drudging low- 
family, had, by his own native force raised himself to the headship of the geogra- 
phers of his generation, said : 

" My friends, we have indeed made a discovery here. We have found in a pal- 



pable, compact 
ble state what 
fathers always 
mere thing of 
Humble your- 
friends, f o r we 
tic presence, 
lels of latitude!" 
and every head 
awful, so sublime 
tude of the dis- 
shed tears, 
pitched and the 
given up to writ- 
accounts of the 
recting astro- 
fit it. Toward 
moniacal shriek 
a clattering and 




and imperisha- 
the wisest of our 
regarded as a 
the imagination, 
selves, my 
stand in a majes- 
These are paral- 

Every heart 
was bowed, so 
was the magni- 
covery. Many 

The camp was 
rest of the day 
ing voluminous 
marvel, and cor- 
nomical tables to 
midnight a de- 
was heard, then 
rumbling noise, 



and the next instant a vast terrific eye shot by, with a long tail attached, and dis- 
appeared in the gloom, still uttering triumphant shrieks. 

The poor camp laborers were stricken to the heart with fright, and stampeded 
for the high grass in a body. But not the scientists. They had no superstitions. 
They calmly proceeded to exchange theories. The ancient geographer's opinion 
was asked. He went into his shell and deliberated long and profoundly. When 
he came out at last, they all knew by his worshiping countenance that he brought 
light. Said he : 
9 



130 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



" Give thanks for this stupendous thing which we have been permitted to witness. 
— It is the Vernal Equinox!" 

There were shoutings and great rejoicings. 

"But," said the Angle-worm, uncoiling after reflection, "this is dead summer 
time." 

" Very well," said the Turtle, " we are far from our region; the season differs 
with the difference of time between the two points." 

" Ah, true. True enough. But it is night. How should the sun pass in the 
night?" 

"In these distant regions he doubtless passes always in the night at this hour." 

" Yes, doubtless that is true. But it being night, how is it that we could see 
him?" 

" It is a great mystery. I grant that. But I am persuaded that the humidity of 
the atmosphere in thesi remote regions is such that particles of daylight adhere to 
the disk and it was by aid of these that we were enabled to see the sun in the dark." 

This was deemed satisfactory, and due entry was made of the decision. 

But about this moment those dreadful shriekings were heard again ; again the 
rumbling and thundering came speeding up out of the night ; and once more a 
flaming great eye flashed by and lost itself in gloom and distance. 

The camp laborers gave themselves up for lost. The savants were sorely per- 
plexed. Here was a marvel hard to account for. They thought and they talked, 
they talked and they thought.-— Finally the learned and aged Lord Grand-Daddy- 
Longlegs, who had been sitting, in deep study, with his slender limbs crossed and 
his stemmy arms folded, said : 

" Deliver your opinions, brethren, and then I will tell my thought — for I think 
I have solved this problem." 

" So be it, good your lordship," piped the weak treble of the wrinkled and 
withered Professor Woodlouse, " for we shall hear from your lordship's lips naught 
but wisdom." — [Here the speaker threw in a mess of trite, threadbare, exasperating 
quotations from the ancient poets and philosophers, delivering them with unction 
in the sounding grandeurs of the original tongues, they being from the Mastodon, 
the Dodo, and other dead languages]. " Perhaps I ought not to presume to meddle 



FABLES FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLS. 131 

with matters pertaining to astronomy at all, in such a presence as this, I who have 
made it the business of my life to delve only among the riches of the extinct 
languages and unearth the opulence of their ancient lore ; but still, as unacquainted 
as I am with the noble science of astronomy, I beg with deference and humility 
to suggest that inasmuch as the last of these wonderful apparitions proceeded in 
exactly the opposite direction from that pursued by the first, which you decide to 
be the Vernal Equinox, and greatly resembled it in all particulars, is it not possible,, 
nay certain, that this last is the Autumnal Equi " 

" O-o-o ! " " O-o-o ! go to bed ! go to bed ! " with annoyed derision from every- 
body. So the poor old Woodlouse retreated out of sight, consumed with shame. 

Further discussion followed, and then the united voice of the commission begged 
Lord Longlegs to speak. He said : 

" Fellow-scientists, it is my belief that we have witnessed a thing which has 
occurred in perfection but once before in the knowledge of created beings. It is a. 
phenomenon of inconceivable importance and interest, view it as one may, but its. 
interest to us is vastly heightened by an added knowledge of its nature which no- 
scholar has heretofore possessed or even suspected. This great marvel which we 
have just witnessed, fellow-savants, (it almost takes my breath away !) is nothing; 
less than the transit of Venus ! " 

Every scholar sprang to his feet pale with astonishment. Then ensued tears,, 
hand-shakings, frenzied embraces, and the most extravagant jubilations of every- 
sort. But by and by, as emotion began to retire within bounds, and reflection to> 
return to the front, the accomplished Chief Inspector Lizard observed : 

"But how is this? — Venus should traverse the sun's surface, not the earth's. '* 

The arrow went home. It carried sorrow to the breast of every apostle of 
learning there, for none could deny that this was a formidable criticism. But 
tranquilly the venerable Duke crossed his limbs behind his ears and said : 

"My friend has touched the marrow of our mighty discovery. Yes — all that 
have lived before us thought a transit of Venus consisted of a flight across the sun's 
face; they thought it, they maintained it, they honestly believed it, simple hearts, 
and were justified in it by the limitations of their knowledge ; but to us has been 
granted the inestimable boon of proving that the transit occurs across the earth's 
face, for we have seen it\ " 



132 MARK TWAIN* S SKETCHES. 

The assembled wisdom sat in speechless adoration of this imperial intellect. All 
doubts had instantly departed, like night before the lightning. 

The Tumble-Bug had just intruded, unnoticed. He now came reeling forward 
among the scholars, familiarly slapping first one and then another on the shoulder, 
saying "Nice ('ic!)nice old boy!" and smiling a smile of elaborate content. 
Arrived at a good position for speaking, he put his left arm akimbo with his knuckles 
planted in his hip just under the edge of his cut-away coat, bent his right leg, 
placing his toe on the ground and resting his heel with easy grace against his left 
shin, puffed out his aldermanic stomach, opened his lips, leaned his right elbow 
on Inspector Lizard's shoulder, and — 

But the shoulder was indignantly withdrawn and the hard-handed son of toil 
went to earth. He floundered a bit but came up smiling, arranged his attitude 
with the same careful detail as before, only choosing Professor Dogtick's shoulder 
for a support, opened his lips and — 

Went to earth again. He presently scrambled up once more, still smiling, made 
a loose effort to brush the dust off his coat and legs, but a smart pass of his hand 
missed entirely and the force of the unchecked impulse slewed him suddenly 
around, twisted his legs together, and projected him, limber and sprawling, into the 
lap of the Lord Longlegs. Two or three scholars sprang forward, flung the 
low creature head over heels into a corner and reinstated the patrician, smoothing 
his ruffled dignity with many soothing and regretful speeches. Professor Bull Frog 
roared out : 

" No more of this, sirrah Tumble-Bug ! Say your say and then get you about 
your business with speed ! — Quick — what is your errand ? Come — move off a 
trifle ; you smell like a stable ; what have you been at ? " 

" Please ('ic !) please your worship I chanced to light upon a find. But no 

m {c-uck /) matter 'bout that. There's b ('ic!) been another find which beg 

pardon, your honors, what was that th ('ic !) thing that ripped by here first? " 

"It was the Vernal Equinox." 

"Inf ('ic!) fernal equinox. 'At's all right. — D ('ic!) Dunno him. What's other 
one?" 

" The transit of Venus." 



FABLES FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GLRLS. 



*3Z 



"G ('ic !) Got me again. No matter. Las' one dropped something." 

" Ah, indeed ! Good luck ! Good news ! Quick — what is it? " 

" M ('ic !) Mosey out 'n* see. It'll pay." 

No more votes were taken for four and twenty hours. Then the following entry 



was made : 
sion went in a 
find. It was 
of a hard, smooth, 
a rounded sum- 
by a short upright 
sembling a sec- 
stalk divided 
— This projec- 
solid, but was a 
plugged with a 
stance unknown 
that is, i t had 
but unfortunately 
had been heed- 
Norway Rat, 
pers and Miners, 
The vast object 




" The commis- 
body to view the 
found to consist 
huge object with 
mit surmounted 
projection re- 
tion of a cabbage 
t r ansve rse 1 y 
tion was not 
hollow cylinder 
soft woody sub- 
to our region — 
been so plugged, 
this obstruction 
lessly removed by 
Chief of the Sap- 
before our arrival, 
before us, so 



mysteriously conveyed from the glittering domains of space, was found to be hollow 
and nearly filled with a pungent liquid of a brownish hue, like rain-water that has 
stood for some time. And such a spectacle as met our view ! Norway Rat was 
perched upon the summit engaged in thrusting his tail into the cylindrical projec- 
tion, drawing it out dripping, permitting the struggling multitude of laborers to 
suck the end of it, then straightway reinserting it and delivering the fluid to the 
mob as before. Evidently this liquor had strangely potent qualities ; for all that 
partook of it were immediately exalted with great and pleasurable emotions, and 
went staggering about singing ribald songs, embracing, fighting, dancing, discharg- 
ing irruptions of profanity, and defying all authority. Around us struggled a massed 



134 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

.and uncontrolled mob — uncontrolled and likewise uncontrollable, for the whole 
.army, down to the very sentinels, were mad like the rest, by reason of the drink. 
We were seized upon by these reckless creatures, and within the hour we, even we, 
-were undistinguishable from the rest — the demoralization was complete and 
universal. In time the camp wore itself out with its orgies and sank into a stolid 
and pitiable stupor, in whose mysterious bonds rank was forgotten and strange 
bed-fellows made, our eyes, at the resurrection, being blasted and our souls petrified 
with the incredible spectacle of that intolerable stinking scavenger, the Tumble- 
Bug, and the illustrious patrician my lord Grand Daddy, Duke of Longlegs, lying 
soundly steeped in sleep, and clasped lovingly in each other's arms, the like 
whereof hath not been seen in all the ages that tradition compasseth, and doubtless 
none shall ever in this world find faith to master the belief of it save only we that 
have beheld the damnable and unholy vision. Thus inscrutable be the ways of 
•God, whose will be done ! 

"This day, by order, did the Engineer-in-Chief, Herr Spider, rig the necessary 
tackle for the overturning of the vast reservoir, and so its calamitous contents were 
discharged in a torrent upon the thirsty earth, which drank it up and now there is 
no more danger, we reserving but a few drops for experiment and scrutiny, and to 
•exhibit to the king and subsequently preserve among the wonders of the museum. 
What this liquid is, has been determined. It is without question that fierce and 
most destructive fluid called lightning. It was wrested, in its container, from its 
store-house in the clouds, by the resistless might of the flying planet, and hurled at 
•our feet as she sped by. An interesting discovery here results. Which is, that 
lightning, kept to itself, is quiescent ; it is the assaulting contact of the thunderbolt 
that releases it from captivity, ignites its awful fires and so produces an instantaneous 
•combustion and explosion which spread disaster and desolation far and wide in 
the earth." 

After another day devoted to rest and recovery, the expedition proceeded upon 
its way. Some days later it went into camp in a pleasant part of the plain, and the 
savants sallied forth to see what they might find. Their reward was at hand. 
Professor Bull Frog discovered a strange tree, and called his comrades. They 
inspected it with profound interest. — It was very tall and straight, and wholly 



FABLES FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLS. 



*35 



devoid of bark, limbs or foliage. By triangulation Lord Longlegs determined its 
altitude; Herr Spider measured its circumference at the base and computed the 
circumference at its top by a mathematical demonstration based upon the warrant 
furnished by the uniform degree of its taper upward. It was considered a very 
extraordinary find ; and since it was a tree of a hitherto unknown species, Professor 
Woodlouse gave it a name of a learned sound, being none other than that of Pro- 
fessor Bull Frog translated into the ancient Mastodon language, for it had always 
been the custom 



to perpetu- 
and honor them- 
sort of connec- 
discoveries. 
or Field-Mouse 
his sensitive ear 
tected a rich, 
sound issuing 
surprising thing 
enjoyed by each 
and great was 
and as tonish- 
fessor Wood- 
quested to add 
the tree's name 
i t suggest the 
i t possessed — ■ 




with discoverers 
ate their names 
selves by this 
tion with their 
Now, Profess- 
having placed 
to the tree, de- 
harmonious 
from it. This 
was tested and 
scholar in turn 
the gladness 
mentofall. Pro- 
louse was re- 
to and extend 
so as to make 
musical quality 
which he did, 



furnishing the addition Anthem Singer, done into the Mastodon tongue. 

By this time Professor Snail was making some telescopic inspections. He dis- 
covered a great number of these trees, extending in a single rank, with wide inter- 
vals between, as far as his instrument would carry, both southward and northward. 
He also presently discovered that all these trees were bound together, near their 
tops, by fourteen great ropes, one above another, which ropes were continuous, 
from tree to tree, as far as his vision could reach. This was surprising. Chief 



136 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

Engineer Spider ran aloft and soon reported that these ropes were simply a web 
hung there by some colossal member of his own species, for he could see its prey 
dangling here and there from the strands, in the shape of mighty shreds and rags 
that had a woven look about their texture and were no doubt the discarded skins 
of prodigious insects which had been caught and eaten. And then he ran along 
one of the ropes to make a closer inspection, but felt a smart sudden burn on the 
soles of his feet, accompanied by a paralyzing shock, wherefore he let go and swung 
himself to the earth by a thread of his own spinning, and advised all to hurry at 
once to camp, lest the monster should appear and get as much interested in the 
savants as they were in him and his works. So they departed with speed, making 
notes about the gigantic web as they went. And that evening the naturalist of the 
expedition built a beautiful model of the colossal spider, having no need to see it 
in order to do this, because he had picked up a fragment of its vertebrae by the 
tree, and so knew exactly what the creature looked like and what its habits and its 
preferences were, by this simple evidence alone. He built it with a tail, teeth, 
fourteen legs and a snout, and said it ate grass, cattle, pebbles and dirt with equal 
enthusiasm. This animal was regarded as a very precious addition to science. It 
was hoped a dead one might be found, to stuff. Professor Woodlouse thought that 
he and his brother scholars, by lying hid and being quiet, might maybe catch a live 
one. He was advised to try it. Which was all the attention that was paid to his 
suggestion. The conference ended with the naming the monster after the natural- 
ist, since he, after God, had created it. 

"And improved it, mayhap," muttered the Tumble-Bug, who waf intruding 
again, according to his idle custom and his unappeasable curiosity. 



END OF TART FIRST 



SOME FABLES FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLS. 



Part Second. 



HOW THE ANIMALS OF THE WOOD COMPLETED THEIR SCIENTIFIC LABORS. 

A week later the expedition camped in the midst of a collection of wonderful 
curiosities. These were a sort of vast caverns of stone that rose singly and in 
bunches out of the plain by the side of the river which they had first seen when 
they emerged from the forest. These caverns stood in long straight rows on 
opposite sides of broad aisles that were bordered with single ranks of trees. The 
summit of each cavern sloped sharply both ways. Several horizontal rows of great 
square holes, obstructed by a thin, shiny, transparent substance, pierced the frontage 
of each cavern. Inside were caverns within caverns ; and one might ascend and 
visit these minor compartments by means of curious winding ways consisting of 
continuous regular terraces raised one above another. There were many huge 
shapeless objects in each compartment which were considered to have been living 
creatures at one time, though now the thin brown skin was shrunken and loose, 
and rattled when disturbed. Spiders were here in great number, and their cob- 
webs, stretched in all directions and wreathing the great skinny dead together, 
were a pleasant spectacle, since they inspired with life and wholesome cheer a 
scene which would otherwise have brought to the mind only a sense of forsakenness 
and desolation. Information was sought of these spiders, but in vain. They were 
of a different nationality from those with the expedition and their language seemed 
but a musical, meaningless jargon. They were a timid, gentle race, but ignorant, 
and heathenish worshipers of unknown gods. The expedition detailed a great 
detachment of missionaries to teach them the true religion, and in a week's time a 
precious work had been wrought among those darkened creatures, not three families 
being by that time at peace with each other or having a settled belief in any system 
of religion whatever. This encouraged the expedition to establish a colony of 
missionaries there permanently, that the work of grace might go on. 

137 . 



138 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

But let us not outrun our narrative. After close examination of the fronts of 
the caverns, and much thinking and exchanging of theories, the scientists deter- 
mined the nature of these singular formations. They said that each belonged 
mainly to the Old Red Sandstone period ; that the cavern fronts rose in innumer- 
able and wonderfully regular strata high in the air, each stratum about five frog- 
spans thick, and that in the present discovery lay an overpowering refutation of all 
received geology : for between every two layers of Old Red Sandstone reposed a 
thin layer of decomposed limestone ; so instead of there having been but one Old 
Red Sandstone period there had certainly been not less than a hundred and seventy- 
five ! And by the same token it was plain that there had also been a hundred 
and seventy-five floodings of the earth and depositings- of limestone strata! The 
unavoidable deduction from which pair of facts, was, the overwhelming truth that 
the world, instead of being only two hundred thousand years old, was older by 
millions upon millions of years! And there was another curious thing: every 
stratum of Old Red Sandstone was pierced and divided at mathematically regular 
intervals by vertical strata of limestone. Up-shootings of igneous rock through 
fractures in water formations were common ; but here was the first instance where 
water-formed rock had been so projected. It was a great and noble discovery and 
its value to science was considered to be inestimable. 

A critical examination of some of the lower strata demonstrated the presence of 
fossil ants and tumble-bugs (the latter accompanied by their peculiar goods), and 
with high gratification the fact was enrolled upon the scientific record; for this 
was proof that these vulgar laborers belonged to the first and lowest orders of 
created beings, though at the same time there was something repulsive in the 
reflection that the perfect and exquisite creature of the modern uppermost order 
owed its origin to such ignominious beings through the mysterious law of Develop- 
ment of Species. 

The Tumble-Bug, overhearing this discussion, said he was willing that the par- 
venus of these new times should find what comfort they might in their wise-drawn 
theories, since as far as he was concerned he was content to be of the old first 
families and proud to point back to his place among the old original aristocracy of 
the land. 



FABLES FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLS. 



!39 



" Enjoy your mushroom dignity, stinking of the varnish of yesterday's veneering, 
since you like it," said he; "suffice it for the Tumble-Bugs that they come of a 
race that rolled their fragrant spheres down the solemn aisles of antiquity, and left 
their imperishable works embalmed in the Old Red Sandstone to proclaim it to the 

ries as they file 



wasting centu- 
along the high- 
"O, take a 
chief of the ex- 
derision, 
passed, and win- 
In an d about 
ems were what 
inscriptions. 
scientists said 
inscriptions, 
were not. The 
Professor Wood- 
tained that they 
done in a char- 
known to schol- 
language equal- 
He had early 




way of Time ! " 
walk ! " said the 
pedition, with 
The summer 
ter approached, 
many of the cav- 
seemed to be 
Most of the 
they were in- 
a few said they 
chief philologist, 
louse, main- 
were writings, 
acter utterly un- 
ars, and in a 
ly unknown, 
ordered his 



artists and draughtsmen to make fac-similes of all that were discovered ; and had set 
himself about finding the key to the hidden tongue. In this work he had followed 
the method which had always been used by decipherers previously. That is to say, 
he placed a number of copies of inscriptions before him and studied them both col- 
lectively and in detail. To begin with, he placed the following copies together: 

The American Hotel. Meals at all Hours. 

The Shades. No Smoking. 

Boats for Hire Cheap. Union Prayer Meeting, 4 P. M. 

Billiards. The Waterside Journal. 

The A 1 Barber Shop. Telegraph Office. 



140 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



Keep off the Grass. Try Brandreth's Pills. 

Cottages for Rent during the Watering Season. 
For Sale Cheap. For Sale Cheap. 

For Sale Cheap. For Sale Cheap. 

At first it seemed to the Professor that this was a sign-language, and that each 
word was represented by a distinct sign ; further examination convinced him that it 
was a written language, and that every letter of its alphabet was represented by a 
character of its own ; and finally, he decided that it was a language which conveyed 
itself partly by letters, and partly by signs or hieroglyphics. This conclusion was 
forced upon him by the discovery of several specimens of the following nature : 




He observed that certain inscriptions were met with in greater frequency than 
others. Such as " For Sale Cheap ;" " Billiards ;" " S. T — 1860— X ;" " Keno ;" 
"Ale on Draught." Naturally, then, these must be religious maxims. But this 
idea was cast aside, by and by, as the mystery of the strange alphabet began to 
clear itself. In time, the Professor was enabled to translate several of the inscrip- 
tions with considerable plausibility, though not to the perfect satisfaction of all the 
scholars. Still, he made constant and encouraging progress. 

Finally a cavern was discovered with these inscriptions upon it : 

WATERSIDE MUSEUM. 

Open at all Hours. Admission 50 cents. 

Wonderful Collection of Wax-Works, Ancient Fossils, etc. 
Professor Woodlouse affirmed that the word " Museum " was equivalent to the 



FABLES FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLS. 141 

phrase " lumgath molo" or "Burial-Place." Upon entering, the scientists were 
well astonished. But what they saw may be best conveyed in the language of their 
own official report : 

" Erect, and in a row, were a sort of rigid great figures which struck us instantly 
as belonging to the long extinct species of reptile called Man, described in our 
ancient records. This was a peculiarly gratifying discovery, because of late times 
it has become fashionable to regard this creature as a myth and a superstition, a 
work of the inventive imaginations of our remote ancestors. But here, indeed, was 
Man, perfectly preserved, in a fossil state. And this was his burial place, as 
already ascertained by the inscription. And now it began to be suspected that the 
caverns we had been inspecting had been his ancient haunts in that old time that 
he roamed the earth — for upon the breast of each of these tall fossils was an 
inscription in the character heretofore noticed. One read, ' Captain Kidd, the 
Pirate ;' another ' Queen Victoria ;' another, ' Abe Lincoln ;' another, ' George 
Washington,' etc. 

" With feverish interest we called for our ancient scientific records to discover if 
perchance the description of Man there set down would tally with the fossils before 
us. Professor W T oodlouse read it aloud in its quaint and musty phraseology, to 
wit : 

" ' In ye time of our fathers Man still walked ye earth, as by tradition we know. 
It was a creature of exceeding great size, being compassed about with a loose skin, 
sometimes of one color, sometimes of many, the which it was able to cast at will ; 
which being done, the hind legs were discovered to be armed with short claws like 
to a mole's but broader, and ye fore-legs with fingers of a curious slimness and a 
length much more prodigious than a frog's, armed also with broad talons for 
scratching in ye earth for its food. It had a sort of feathers upon its head such as 
hath a rat, but longer, and a beak suitable for seeking its food by ye smell thereof. 
When it was stirred with happiness, it leaked water from its eyes ; and when it suf- 
fered or was sad, it manifested it with a horrible hellish cackling clamor that was 
exceeding dreadful to hear and made one long that it might rend itself and perish, 
and so end its troubles. Two Mans being together, they uttered noises at each 
other like to this : * Haw-haw-haw — dam good, dam good,' together with other 



142 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



sounds of more or less likeness to these, wherefore ye poets conceived that they 
talked, but poets be always ready to catch at any frantic folly, God he knows. 
Sometimes this creature goeth about with a long stick ye which it putteth to its 
face and bloweth fire and smoke through ye same with a sudden and most damna- 
ble bruit and noise that doth fright its prey to death, and so seizeth it in its talons 
and walketh away to its habitat, consumed with a most fierce and devilish joy.* 
" Now was the description set forth by our ancestors wonderfully endorsed 



and confirmed 
before us, as 
The specimen 
tain Kidd ' was 
tail. Upon its 
of its face was a 
that .upon the 
With great labor 
was removed, 
body was dis- 
a polished white 
oughly petrified, 
eaten, so many 
was still in i ts 
ed — and even in 
" Surrounding 
were objects 
mean nothing 
but to the eye 
were a revelation 




by the fossils 
shall be seen, 
marked ' Cap- 
examined in de- 
head and part 
sort of fur like 
tail of a horse, 
its loose skin 
whereupon i t s 
covered to be of 
texture, thor- 
The straw it had 
ages gone by, 
body, undigest- 
its legs. 

these fossils 
that would 
to the ignorant, 
of science they 



They laid bare the secrets of dead ages. These musty Memo- 
rials told us when Man lived, and what were his habits. For here, side by side 
with Man, were the evidences that he had lived in the earliest ages of creation v 
the companion of the other low orders of life that belonged to that forgotten 
time. — Here was the fossil nautilus that sailed the primeval seas ; here was the 
skeleton of the mastodon, the ichthyosaurus, the cave bear, the prodigious elk. 



FABLES FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GLRLS. 143 

Here, also, were the charred bones of some of these extinct animals and of the 
young of Man's own species, split lengthwise, showing that to his taste the marrow 
was a toothsome luxury. It was plain that Man had robbed those bones of their 
contents, since no tooth-mark of any beast was upon them — albeit the* Tumble- 
Bug intruded the remark that " no beast could mark a bone with its teeth, anyway." 
Here were proofs that Man had vague, groveling notions of art; for this fact 
was conveyed by certain things marked with the untranslatable words, ' Flint 
Hatchets, Knives, Arrow-Heads, and Bone-Ornaments of Primeval Man.' 
Some of these seemed to be rude weapons chipped out of flint, and in a secret 
place was found some more in process of construction, with this untranslatable 
legend, on a thin, flimsy material, lying by: 

i ' Jones, if you dorit want to be discharged fro7ii the Musseum, make the next pri- 
meaveal weppons more careful — you couldnt even fool one of these sleapy old syentiffic 
granny s from the Coledge with the last ones. And mind you the animles you carved on 
some of the Bone Ornaments is a blame sight too good for any pri?neaveal man that 
was ever fooled. — Varnum, Manager." 

" Back of the burial place was a mass of ashes, showing that Man always had a 
feast at a funeral — else why the ashes in such a place ? and showing, also, that he 
believed in God and the immortality of the soul — else why these solemn ceremonies ? 

To sum up. — We believe that man had a written language. We know that he 
indeed existed at one time, and is not a myth; also, that he was the companion of 
the cave bear, the mastodon, and other extinct species; that he cooked and ate 
them and likewise the young of his own kind; also, that he bore rude weapons, and 
knew something of art ; that he imagined he had a soul, and pleased himself with 
the fancy that it was immortal. But let us not laugh ; there may be creatures in 
existence to whom we and our vanities and profundities may seem as ludicrous." 



END OF PART SECOND. 




SOME FABLES FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLS. 



Part Third. 



Near the margin of the great river the scientists presently found a huge, shapely 
stone, with this inscription : 

" In 1847, in the spring, the river overflowed its banks and covered the whole town- 
ship. The depth was from tiuo to six feet. More than goo head of cattle were lost, 
and many homes destroyed. The Mayor ordered this memorial to be erected to perpetu- 
ate the event. God spare us the repetition of it ! " 

With infinite trouble, Professor Woodlouse succeeded in making a translation of 
this inscription, which was sent home and straightway an enormous excitement was 
created about it. It confirmed, in a remarkable way, certain treasured traditions 
of the ancients. The translation was slightly marred by one or two untranslatable 

.144 



FABLES FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GLRLS. 145 

words, but these did not impair the general clearness of the meaning. It is here 
presented: 

" One thousand eight hundred and forty-seven years ago, the {fires ?) descended and 
consumed the whole city. Only some nine hundred souls were saved, all others destroyed. 
The {king ?) commanded this stone to be set up to {untranslatable) pre- 
vent the repetition of it" 

This was the first successful and satisfactory translation that had been made of 
the mysterious character left behind him by extinct man, and it gave Professor 
Woodlouse such reputation that at once every seat of learning in his native land 
conferred a degree of the most illustrious grade upon him, and it was believed that 
if he had been a soldier and had turned his splendid talents to the extermination 
of a remote tribe of reptiles, the king would have ennobled him and made him rich. 
And this, too, was the origin of that school of scientists called Manologists, whose 
specialty is the deciphering of the ancient records of the extinct bird termed Man. 
[For it is now decided that Man was a bird and not a reptile]. But Professor 
Woodlouse began and remained chief of these, for it was granted that no translations 
were ever so free from error as his. Others made mistakes — he seemed incapable 
of it. Many a memorial of the lost race was afterward found, but none ever 
attained to the renown and veneration achieved by the " Mayoritish Stone " — it 
being so called from the word "Mayor "in it, which, being translated "King," 
" Mayoritish Stone " was but another way of saying "King Stone." 

Another time the expedition made a great "find." It was a vast round flattish 
mass, ten frog-spans in diameter and five or six high. Professor Snail put on his 
spectacles and examined it all around, and then climbed up and inspected the top. 
He said : 

"The result of my perlustration and perscontation of this isoperimetrical protu- 
berance is a belief that it is one of those rare and wonderful creations left by the 
Mound Builders. The fact that this one is lamellibranchiate in its formation, 
simply adds to its interest as being possibly of a different kind from any we read 
of in the records of science, but yet in no manner marring its authenticity.' Let 
the megalophonous grasshopper sound a blast and summon hither the perfunctory 
and circumforaneous Tumble-Bug, to the end that excavations may be made and 

learning gather new treasures." 
10 



146 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

Not a Tumble-Bug could be found on duty, so the Mound was excavated by a 
working party of Ants. Nothing was discovered. This would have been a great 
disappointment, had not the venerable Longlegs explained the matter. — He said : 

" It is now plain to me that the mysterious and forgotten race of Mound Builders 
did not always erect these edifices as mausoleums, else in this case as in all previous 
cases, their skeletons would be found here, along with the rude implements which 
the creatures used in life. Is not this manifest?" 

"True! true!" from everybody. 

" Then we have made a discovery of peculiar value here ; a discovery which 
greatly extends our knowledge of this creature in place of diminishing it ; a discov- 
ery which will add lustre to the achievements of this expedition and win for us the 
commendations of scholars everywhere. For the absence of the customary relics 
here means nothing less than this : The Mound Builder, instead of being the igno- 
rant, savage reptile we have been taught to consider him, was a creature of cultiva- 
tion and high intelligence, capable of not only appreciating worthy achievements 
of the great and noble of his species, but of commemorating them ! Fellow- 
scholars, this stately Mound is not a sepulchre, it is a monument!" 

A profound impression was produced by this. 

But it was interrupted by rude and derisive laughter — and the Tumble-Bug 
appeared. 

" A monument !" quoth he. " A monument set up by a Mound Builder ! Aye, 
so it is! So it is, indeed, to the shrewd keen eye of science ; but to an ignorant 
poor devil who has never seen a college, it is not a Monument, strictly speaking, 
but is yet a most rich and noble property; and with your worships' good permission 
I will proceed to manufacture it into spheres of exceeding grace and — " 

The Tumble-Bug was driven away with stripes, and the draughtsmen of the 
expedition were set to making views of the Monument from different standpoints, 
while Professor Woodlouse, in a frenzy of scientific zeal, traveled all over it and all 
around it hoping to find an inscription. But if there had ever been one it had 
decayed or been removed by some vandal as a relic. 

The views having been completed, it was now considered safe to load the 
precious Monument itself upon the backs of four of the largest Tortoises and send 



FABLES FOR GOOD OLD BO YS AND GIRLS. 



147 



it home to the King's museum, which was done ; and when it arrived it was received 
with enormous eclat and escorted to its future abiding-place by thousands of enthu- 
siastic citizens, King Bullfrog XVI. himself attending and condescending to sit 
enthroned upon it throughout the progress. 

The growing rigor of the weather was now admonishing the scientists to close 
their labors for the present, so they made preparations to journey homeward. But 
even their last day among the Caverns bore fruit ; for one of the scholars found in 
an o u t-o f-t h e- ~^™^""™ way corner of 

the Museum or __^|||p r v __^^^T~-^h TjtV " Burial -Place " 

a m o s t strange ^= ^^-^ dS^^ '^J&kPlff JmTJF^ a ^d extraordina- 

ry thing. It was f^^^-^^^^^-^C^^^^^* 1 ^ nothing less than 
a double Man- fm^^^^^ "^^^^fe^// Bird lashed t0 " 

gether breast to *f |[| /ffl||M \\ } f^mwf breaSt by a nat " 

ural ligament, !((1||| I ft J f /> V/' ! V\ SV '^ ^A \/ Ul^^J^/y^^ W /^^^ and labelled 
with the untrans- rf 'JM 1 at abl e words, 

-Siamese Twins- f^|^ The official re- 

port concerning llr^^^ this thing closed 

thus: i^^7^^^^^^^TllM^HiB "Wherefore it 

appears that "^jj/^^^S/^^M^^^^M there were in old 
times two dis- 

this majestic 
ing single and 
Nature has a 
things . — It is 

of science that 



tinct species of 
fowl, the one be- 
the other double, 
reason for all 
plain to the eye 
the Double-Man 

originally inhabited a region where dangers abounded ; hence he was paired 
together to the end that while one part slept the other might watch ; and likewise 
that, danger being discovered, there might always be a double instead of a single 
power to oppose it. All honor to the mystery-dispelling eye of godlike Science !" 
And near the Double Man-Bird was found what was plainly an ancient record of 
his, marked upon numberless sheets of a thin white substance and bound together. 
Almost the first glance that Professor Woodlouse threw into it revealed this 




148 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



following sentence, which he instantly translated and laid before the scientists, in 
a tremble, and it uplifted every soul there with exultation and astonishment : 

•*/« truth it is believed by many that the lower animals reason and talk together!* 

When the great official report of the expedition appeared, the above sentence 
bore this comment : 

** Then there are lower animals than Man ! This remarkable passage can mean 
nothing else. Man himself is extinct, but they may still exist. What can they be? 
Where do they inhabit? One's enthusiasm bursts all bounds in the contemplation 
of the brilliant field of discovery and investigation here thrown open to science. 
We close our labors with the humble prayer that your Majesty will immediately 
appoint a commission and command it to rest not nor spare expense until the search 
for this hitherto unsuspected race of the creatures of God shall be crowned with 
•access." 

The expedition then journeyed homeward after its long absence and its faithful 
COdeavors, and was received with a mighty ovation by the whole grateful country. 

There were vulgar, ignorant carpers, of course, as there always are and always 
irUl be ; and naturally one of these was the obscene Tumble-Bug. He said that all 
he had learned by his travels was that science only needed a spoonful of supposU 
tiOQ to build a mountain of demonstrated fact out of; and that for the future he 
meant to be content with the knowledge that nature had made free to all creatures 
and not go prying into the august secrets of the Deity. 



MY LATE SENATORIAL SECRETARYSHIP. 

I AM not a private secretary to a senator any more, now. I held the berth 
two months in security and in great cheerfulness of spirit, but my bread 
began to return from over the waters, then — that is to say, my works came 
back and revealed themselves. I judged it best to resign. The way of it was 
this. My employer sent for me one morning tolerably early, and, as soon as I 
had finished inserting some conundrums clandestinely into his last great speech 
upon finance, I entered the presence. There was something portentous in his 
appearance. His cravat was untied, his hair was in a state of disorder, and his 
countenance bore about it the signs of a suppressed storm. He held a package 
of letters in his tense grasp, and I knew that the dreaded Pacific mail was in. 
He said — 

" I thought you were worthy of confidence." 

I said, "Yes, sir." 

He said, " I gave you a letter from certain of my constituents in the State of 
Nevada, asking the establishment of a post-office at Baldwin's Ranch, and told 
you to answer it, as ingeniously as you could, with arguments which should 
persuade them that there was no real necessity for an office at that place." 

I felt easier. " Oh, if that is all, sir, I did do that." 

" Yes, you did. I will read your answer, for your own humiliation : 

" Washington, Nov. 24. 
11 ' Messrs. Smith, Jones, and others. 

" ' Gentlemen : What the mischief do you suppose you want with a post-office at Baldwin's 
Ranche? It would not do you any good. If any letters came there, you couldn't read them, you 
know ; and, besides, such letters as ought to pass through, with money in them, for other localities, 
would not be likely to get through, you must perceive at once ; and that would make trouble for us 
all. No, don't bother about a post-office in your camp. I have your best interests at heart, and 
feel that it would only be an ornamental folly. What you want is a nice jail, you know — a nice, sub- 
stantial jail and a free school. These will be a lasting benefit to you. These will make you really 
contented and happy. I will move in the matter at once. 

" ' Very truly, etc., 

"•Mark Twain, 
" ' For James W. N**, U. S. Senator/ 

" That is the way you answered that letter. Those people say they will hang mc, 

149 



150 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



if I ever enter that district again ; and I am perfectly satisfied they will, too." 

" Well, sir, I did not know I was doing any harm. I only wanted to 

convince them." 

"Ah. Well you did convince them, I make no manner of doubt. Now, here 

is another specimen. I gave you a petition from certain gentlemen of Nevada, 

praying that I would get a bill through Congress incorporating the Methodist 

Episcopal Church of the State of Nevada. I told you to say, in reply, that the 

creation of such a law came more properly within the province of the State 

Legislature ; and to endeavor to show them that, in the present feebleness of the 

religious element in that new commonwealth, the expediency of incorporating 

the church was questionable. What did you write ? 

" ' Washington, Nov. 24. 
" ' Rev. John Halifax and ethers. 

" ' Gentlemen : You will have to go to the State Legislature about that speculation of yours — 
Congress don't know anything about religion. But don't you hurry to go there, either ; because this 
thing you propose to do out in that new country isn't expedient — in fact, it is ridiculous. Your 
religious people there are too feeble, in intellect, in morality, in piety — in everything, pretty much. 
You had better drop this — you can't make it work. You can't issue stock on an incorporation like 
that — or if you could, it would only keep you in trouble all the time. The other denominations 
would abuse it, and " bear " it, and " sell it short," and break it down. They would do with it just 
as they would with one of your silver mines out there — they would try to make all the world believe 
it was "wildcat." You ought not to do anything that is calculated to bring a sacred thing into 
disrepute. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves — that is what / think about it. You close your 
petition with the words : " And we will ever pray." I think you had better — you need to do it. 

" ' Very truly, etc., 

" ' Mark Twain, 
" ' For James W. N**, U. S. Senator.' 

u That luminous epistle finishes me with the religious element among my 
constituents. But that my political murder might be made sure, some evil 
instinct prompted me to hand you this memorial from the grave company of 
elders composing the Board of Aldermen of the city of San Francisco, to try 
your hand upon — a memorial praying that the city's right to the water-lots upon 
the city front might be established by law of Congress. I told you this was a 
dangerous matter to move in. I told you to write a non-committal letter to the 
Aldermen — an ambiguous letter — a letter that should avoid, as far as possible, 
all real consideration and discussion of the water-lot question. If there is any 
feeling left in you — any shame — surely this letter you wrote, in obedience to 
that order, ought to evoke it, when its words fall upon your ears: 



MY LATE SENA TORI A L SE CRE TA R YSHIP. 1 5 1 

" ' Washington, Nov. 27. 
"' The Hon. Board of Aldermen, etc. 

"'Gentlemen : George Washington, the revered Father of his Country is dead. His long and 
brilliant career is closed, alas ! forever. He was greatly respected in this section of the country, 
and his untimely decease cast a gloom over the whole community. He died on the 14th day of 
December, 1799. He passed peacefully away from the scene of his honors and his great achieve- 
ments, the most lamented hero and the best beloved that ever earth hath yielded unto Death. At 
such a time as this, you speak of water-lots ! — what a lot was his ! 

'"What is fame! Fame is an accident. Sir Isaac Newton discovered an apple falling to the 
ground — a trivial discovery, truly, and one which a million men had made before him — but his 
parents were influential, and so they tortured that small circumstance into something wonderful, 
and, lo ! the simple world took up the shout and, in almost the twinkling of an eye, that man was 
famous. Treasure these thoughts. 

" ' Poesy, sweet poesy, who shall estimate what the world owes to thee ! 

" Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow — 
And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go." 

"Jack and Gill went up the hill 
To draw a pail of water ; 
Jack fell down and broke his crown, 
And Gill came tumbling after." 

For simplicity, elegance of diction, and freedom from immoral tendencies, I regard those two 
poems in the light of gems. They are suited to all grades of intelligence, to every sphere of life — 
to the field, to the nursery, to the guild. Especially should no Board of Aldermen be without them. 

" ' Venerable fossils ! write again. Nothing improves one so much as friendly correspondence. 
Write again — and if there is anything in this memorial of yours that refers to anything in particu- 
lar, do not be backward about explaining it. We shall always be happy to hear you chirp. 

" ' Very truly, etc. 

" ' Mark Twain, 
" ' For James W. N**, U. S. Senator. 

"That is an atrocious, a ruinous epistle! Distraction! " 

" Well, sir, I am really sorry if there is anything wrong about it — but — but it 
appears to me to dodge the water-lot question." 

" Dodge the mischief! Oh! — but never mind. As long as destruction must 
come now, let it be complete. Let it be complete — let this last of your per- 
formances, which I am about to read, make a finality of it. I am a ruined man. 
I had my misgivings when I gave you the the letter from Humboldt, asking 
that the post route from Indian Gulch to Shakespeare Gap and intermediate 
points, be changed partly to the old Mormon trail. But I told you it was a 
delicate question, and warned you to deal with it deftly — to answer it dubiously, 
and leave them a little in the dark. And your fatal imbecility impelled you to 



152 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

make this disastrous reply. I should think you would stop your ears, if you are 

not dead to all shame : 

" • Washington, Nov. 30. 
" ' Messrs. Perkins, Wagner, et at. 

" ' Gentlemen : It is a delicate question about this Indian trail, but, handled with proper deft- 
ness and dubiousness, I doubt not we shall succeed in some measure or otherwise, because the 
place where the route leaves the Lassen Meadows, over beyond where those two Shawnee chiefs, 
Dilapidated- Vengeance and Biter-of-the-Clouds, were scalped last winter, this being the favorite 
direction to some, but others preferring something else in consequence of things, the Mormon 
trail leaving Mosby's at three in the morning, and passing through Jawbone Flat to Blucher, and 
then down by Jug-Handle, the road passing to the right of it, and naturally leaving it on the right, 
too, and Dawson's on the left of the trail where it passes to the left of said Dawson's and onward 
thence to Tomahawk, thus making the route cheaper, easier of access to all who can get at it, and 
compassing all the desirable objects so considered by others, and, therefore, conferring the most 
good upon the greatest number, and, consequently, I am encouraged to hope we shall. However, 
I shall be ready, and happy, to afford you still further information upon the subject, from time to 
time, as you may desire it and the Post-office Department be enabled to furnish it to me. 

" * Very truly, etc. 

" ' Mark Twain, 
" ■ For James W. N**, U. S. Senator/ 

" There — now what do you think of that?" 

" Well, I don't know, sir. It — well, it appears to me — to be dubious enough." 

"Du — leave the house! I am a ruined man. Those Humboldt savages never 
will forgive me for tangling their brains up with this inhuman letter. I have 
lost the respect of the Methodist Church, the Board of Aldermen " 

" Well, I haven't anything to say about that, because I may have missed it a 
little in their cases, but I was too many for the Baldwin's Ranch people, 
General ! " 

" Leave the house ! Leave it for ever and for ever, too ! " 

I regarded that as a sort of covert intimation that my service could be dis- 
pensed with, and so I resigned. I never will be a private secretary to a senator 
again. You can't please that kind of people. They don't know anything. 
They can't appreciate a party's efforts. 




throng 
men. 



General G 's reception the other 

night, the most fashionably dressed lady 
was Mrs. G. C. She wore a pink satin 
dress, plain in front but with a good deal of rake to 
it — to the train, I mean ; it was said to be two 
or three yards long. One could see it creeping 
along the floor some little time after the woman 
was gone. Mrs. C. wore also a white bodice, cut 
bias, with Pompadour sleeves, flounced with 
ruches ; low neck, with the inside handkerchief 
not visible, with white kid gloves. She had on 
a pearl necklace, which glinted lonely, high up 
the midst of that barren waste of neck and 
shoulders. Her hair was frizzled into a tangled 
chapparel, forward of her ears, aft it was drawn 
together, and compactly bound and plaited into 
a stump like a pony's tail, and furthermore was 
canted upward at a sharp angle, and ingeniously 
supported by a red velvet crupper, whose forward 
extremity was made fast with a half-hitch around 
a hairpin on the top of her head. Her whole 
top hamper was neat and becoming. She had a 
beautiful complexion when she first came, but it 
faded out by degrees in an unaccountable way. 
However, it is not lost for good. I found the 
most of it on my shoulder afterwards. (I stood 
near the door when she squeezed out with the 
) There were other ladies present, but I only took notes of one as a speci- 
I would gladly enlarge upon the subject were I able to do it justice. 

153 




RILEY— NEWSPAPER CORRE- 
SPONDENT. 

ONE of the best men in Wash- 
ington — or elsewhere — is 
Riley, correspondent of one 
of the great San Francisco dailies. 
Riley is full of humor, and has 
an unfailing vein of irony, which 
makes his conversation to the last 
degree entertaining (as long as the 
remarks are about somebody else)- 
But, notwithstanding the possession 
of these qualities, which should en- 
able a man to write a happy and an 
appetizing letter, Riley's newspaper 
letters often display a more than earthly solemnity, and likewise an unimagi- 
native devotion to petrified facts, which surprise and distress all men who 

,154 



RILEY— NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT. 155 

know him in his unofficial character. He explains this curious thing by saying that 
his employers sent him to Washington to write facts, not fancy, and that several 
times he has come near losing his situation by inserting humorous remarks which, 
not being looked for at headquarters, and consequently not understood, were 
thought to be dark and bloody speeches intended to convey signals and warnings 
to murderous secret societies, or something of that kind, and so were scratched out 
w r ith a shiver and u prayer and cast into the stove. Riley says that sometimes he is 
so afflicted with a yearning to write a sparkling and absorbingly readable letter 
that he simply cannot resist it, and so he goes to his den and revels in the delight 
of untramelled scribbling; and then, with suffering such as only a mother can know, 
he destroys the pretty children of his fancy and reduces his letter to the required 
dismal accuracy. Having seen Riley do this very thing more than once, I know 
whereof I speak. Often I have laughed with him over a happy passage, and grieved 
to see him plough his pen through it. He would say, " I had to write that or die; 
and I've got to scratch it out or starve. They wouldn't stand it, you know." 

I think Riley is about the most entertaining company I ever saw. We lodged 
together in many places in Washington during the winter of '67-8, moving comfort- 
ably from place to place, and attracting attention by paying our board — a course 
which cannot fail to make a person conspicuous in Washington. Riley would tell 
all about his trip to California in the early days, by way of the Isthmus and the 
San Juan river; and about his baking bread in San Francisco to gain a living, and 
setting up ten-pins, and practising law, and opening oysters, and delivering lectures, 
and teaching French, and tending bar, and reporting for the newspapers, and 
keeping dancing-schools, and interpreting Chinese in the courts — which latter was 
lucrative, and Riley was doing handsomely and laying up a little money when 
people began to find fault because his translations were too "free," a thing for 
which Riley considered he ought not to be held responsible, since he did not know 
a word of the Chinese tongue, and only adopted interpreting as means of gaining 
an honest livelihood. Through the machinations of enemies he was removed 
from the position of official interpreter, and a man put in his place who was familiar 
with the Chinese language, but did not know any English. And Riley used to tell 
about publishing a newspaper up in what is Alaska now, but was only an iceberg 



156 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

then, with a population composed of bears, walruses, Indians, and other animals; 
and how the iceberg got adrift at last, and left all his paying subscribers behind, 
and as soon as the commonwealth floated out of the jurisdiction of Russia the 
people rose and threw off their allegiance and ran up the English flag, calculating 
to hook on and become an English colony as they drifted along down the British 
Possessions; but a land breeze and a crooked current carried them by, and they 
ran up the Stars and Stripes and steered for California, missed the connection 
again and swore allegiance to Mexico, but it wasn't any use ; the anchors came 
home every time, and away they went with the north-east trades drifting off 
side-ways toward the Sandwich Islands, whereupon they ran up the Cannibal flag 
and had a grand human barbecue in honor of it, in which it was noticed that the 
better a man liked a friend the better he enjoyed him; and as soon as they got fairly 
within the tropics the weather got so fearfully hot that the iceberg began to melt, 
and it got so sloppy under foot that it was almost impossible for ladies to get about 
at all; and at last, just as they came in sight of the islands, the melancholy remnant 
of the once majestic iceberg canted first to one side and then to the other, and 
then plunged under for ever, carrying the national archives along with it — and not 
only the archives and the populace, but some eligible town lots which had increased 
in value as fast as they diminished in size in the tropics, and which Riley could 
have sold at thirty cents a pound and made himself rich if he could have kept the 
province afloat ten hours longer and got her into port. 

Riley is very methodical, untiringly accommodating, never forgets anything that- 
is to be attended to, is a good son, a staunch friend, and a permanent reliable 
enemy. He will put himself to any amount of trouble to oblige a body, and there- 
fore always has his hands full of things to be done for the helpless and the shiftless. 
And he knows how to do nearly everything, too. He is a man whose native benev- 
olence is a well-spring that never goes dry. He stands always ready to help 
whoever needs help, as far as he is able — and not simply with his money, for that 
is a cheap and common charity, but with hand and brain, and fatigue of limb and 
sacrifice of time. This sort of men is rare. 

Riley has a ready wit, a quickness and aptness at selecting and applying quota- 
tions, and a countenance that is as solemn and as blank as the back side of a 



RILEY— NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT. 157 

tombstone when he is delivering a particularly exasperating joke. One night a 
negro woman was burned to death in a house next door to us, and Riley said that 
our landlady would be oppressively emotional at breakfast, because she generally 
made use of such opportunities as offered, being of a morbidly sentimental turn, 
and so we should find it best to let her talk along and say nothing back — it was the 
only way to keep her tears out of the gravy. Riley said there never was a funeral 
in the neighborhood but that the gravy was watery for a week. 

And, sure enough, at breakfast the landlady was down in the very sloughs of woe 
— entirely broken-hearted. Everything- she looked at reminded her of that poor 
old negro woman, and so the buckwheat cakes made her sob, the coffee forced a 
groan, and when the beefsteak came on she fetched a wail that made our hair rise. 
Then she got to talking about deceased, and kept up a steady drizzle till both of 
us were soaked through and through. Presently she took a fresh breath and said, 
with a world of sobs — 

" Ah, to think of it, only to think of it ! — the poor old faithful creature. For she 
was so faithful. Would you believe it, she had been a servant in that self-same 
house and that self-same family for twenty-seven years come Christmas, and never 
a cross word and never a lick ! And, oh, to think she should meet such a death at 
last ! — a-sitting over the red-hot stove at three o'clock in the morning and went to 
sleep and fell on it and was actually roasted 7 Not just frizzled up a bit, but 
literally roasted to a crisp ! Poor faithful creature, how she was cooked ! I am but 
a poor woman, but even if I have to scrimp to do it, I will put up a tombstone over 
that lone sufferer's grave — and Mr. Riley if you would have the goodness to think 
up a little epitaph to put on it which would sort of describe the awful way in which 
she met her 'V- 

" Put it, ' Well done y good and faithful servant,' " said Riley, and never smiled. 




J 



^unless — unless you count whisky. 



OHN WAGNER, the oldest man 
in Buffalo — one hundred and four 
years old — recently walked a mile 
and a half in two weeks. 

He is as cheerful and bright as any of 
these other old men that charge around 
so persistently and tiresomely in the 
newspapers, and in every way as remark- 
able. 

Last November he walked five blocks 
in a rain-btorin, without any shelter but 
an umbrella, and cast his vote for Grant, 
remarking that he had voted for forty- 
seven presidents — which was a lie. 

His " second crop " of rich brown hair 
arrived from New York yesterday, and 
he has a new set of teeth coming — from 
Philadelphia. 

He is to be married next week to a 
girl one hundred and two years old, who 
still takes in washing. 

They have been engaged eighty years, 
but their parents persistently refused 
their consent until three days ago. 

John Wagner is two years older than 
the Rhode Island veteran, and yet has 
never tasted a drop of liquor in his life 



158 





T that time, in Kentucky (said the Hon. Mr. K- 



-), the law was 



very strict against what is termed "games of chance." About a 
dozen of the boys were detected playing " seven-up " or " old sledge " 
for money, and the grand jury found a true bill against them. Jim 
Sturgis was retained to defend them when the case came up, of course. The more 
he studied over the matter, and looked into the evidence, the plainer it was that he 
must lose a case at last — there was no getting around that painful fact. Those 
boys had certainly been betting money on a game of chance. Even public sympa- 
thy was roused in behalf of Sturgis. People said it was a pity to see him mar his 
successful career with a big prominent case like this, which must go against him. 

But after several restless nights an inspired idea flashed upon Sturgis, artd he 
sprang out of bed delighted. He thought he saw his way through. The next day 
he whispered around a little among his clients and a few friends, and then when 
the case came up in court he acknowledged the seven-up and the betting, and, as 
his sole defence, had the astounding effrontery to put in the plea that old sledge 
was not a game of chance ! There was the broadest sort of a smile all over the 
faces of that sophisticated audience. The 'judge smiled with the rest. But Sturgis 
maintained a countenance whose earnestness was even severe. The opposite 
counsel tried to ridicule him out of his position, and did not succeed. The judge 
jested in a ponderous judicial way about the thing, but did not move him. The 
matter was becoming grave. The judge lost a little of his patience, and said the 
joke had gone far enough. Jim Sturgis said he knew of no joke in the matter — his 

159 

\ 



160 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

clients could not be punished for indulging in what some people chose to consider 
a game of chance until it was proven that it was a game of chance. Judge and 
counsel said that would be an easy matter, and forthwith called Deacons Job, 
Peters, Burke, and Johnson, and Dominies Wirt and Miggles, to testify ; and they 
unanimously and with strong feeling put down the legal quibble of Sturgis by pro- 
nouncing that old sledge was a game of chance. 

" What do you call it now?" said the judge. 

"I call it a game of science!" retorted Sturgis; "and I'll prove it, too !" 

They saw his little game. 

He brought in a cloud of witnesses, and produced an overwhelming mass oi 
testimony, to show that old sledge was not a game of chance but a game of 
science. 

Instead of being the simplest case in the world, it had somehow turned out to be 
an excessively knotty one. The judge scratched his head over it a while, and said 
there was no way of coming to a determination, because just as many men could 
be brought into court who would testify on one side as could be found to testify on 
the other. But he said he was willing to do the fair thing by all parties, and 
would act upon any suggestion Mr. Sturgis would make for the solution of the 
difficulty. 

Mr. Sturgis was on his feet in a second. 

" Impanel a jury of six of each, Luck versus Science. Give them candles and a 
couple of decks of cards. Send them into the jury room, and just abide by the 
result!" 

There was no disputing the fairness of the proposition. The four deacons and 
the two dominies were sworn in as the " chance " jurymen, and six inveterate old 
seven-up professors were chosen to represent the " science " side of the issue. 
They retired to the jury room. 

In about two hours Deacon Peters sent into court to borrow three dollars from a 
friend. [Sensation.] In about two hours more Dominie Miggles sent into court 
to borrow a " stake " from a friend. [Sensation.] During the next three or four 
hours the other dominie and the other deacons sent into court for small loans. 
And still the packed audience waited, for it was a prodigious occasion in 



SCIENCE vs. L UCK. 1 6 1 



Bull's Corners, and one in which every father of a family was necessarily 
interested. 

The rest of the story can be told briefly. About daylight the jury came in, and 
Deacon Job, the foreman, read the following 

VERDICT. 

We, the jury in the case of the Commonwealth of Kentucky vs. John Wheeler et 
al.y have carefully considered the points of the case, and tested the merits of the 
several theories advanced, and do hereby unanimously decide that the game com- 
monly known as old sledge or seven-up is eminently a game of science and not of 
chance. In demonstration whereof it is hereby and herein stated, iterated, 
reiterated, set forth, and made manifest that, during the entire night, the " chance " 
men never won a game or turned a jack, although both feats were common and 
frequent to the opposition ; and furthermore, in support of this our verdict, we call 
attention to the significant fact that the " chance " men are all busted, and the 
" science " men have got the money. It is the deliberate opinion of this jury, that 
the " chance " theory concerning seven-up is a pernicious doctrine, and calculated 
to inflict untold suffering and pecuniary loss upon any community that takes stock 
in it. 

" That is the way that seven-up came to be set apart and particularized in the 
statute-books of Kentucky as being a game not of chance but of science, and 

therefore not punishable under the law," said Mr. K . " That verdict is of 

record, and holds good to this day." 



ii 



THE KILLING OF JULIUS CAESAR "LOCALIZED." 

Being the only true and reliable account ever published j taken from the Roman "Daily 
Evening Fasces" of the date of that tremendous occurrence. 

NOTHING in the world affords a newspaper reporter so much satisfaction 
as gathering up the details of a bloody and mysterious murder, and 
writing them up with aggravating circumstantiality. He takes a living 
delight in this labor of love — for such it is to him especially if he knows that 
all the other papers have gone to press, and his will be the only one that will 
contain the dreadful intelligence. A feeling of regret has often come over me 
that I was not reporting in Rome when Caesar was killed — reporting on an» 

162 



THE KILLING OF JULIUS CAESAR "LOCALIZED." 163 

evening paper, and the only one in the city, and getting at least twelve hours 
ahead of the morning paper boys with this most magnificent "item'*' that ever 
fell to the lot of the craft. Other events have happened as startling as this, but 
none that possessed so peculiarly all the characteristics of the favorite " item " 
of the present day, magnified into grandeur and sublimity by the high rank, 
fame, and social and political standing of the actors in it. 

However, as I was not permitted to report Caesar's assassination in the regular 
way, it has at least afforded me rare satisfaction to translate the following able 
account of it from the original Latin of the Roma?i Daily Evening Fasces of that 
date — second edition. 

" Our usually quiet city of Rome was thrown into a state of wild excitement yesterday by the 
occurrence of one of those bloody affrays which sicken the heart and fill the soul with tear, while 
they inspire all thinking men with forebodings for the future of a city where human life is held so 
cheaply, and the gravest laws are so openly set at defiance. As the result of that affray, it is our pain- 
ful duty, as public journalists, to record the death of one of our most esteemed citizens — a man 
whose name is known wherever this paper circulates, and whose fame it has been our pleasure and 
our privilege to extend, and also to protect from the tongue of slander and falsehood, to the best of 
our poor ability. We refer to Mr. J. Caesar, the Emperor-elect. 

" The facts of the case, as nearly as our reporter could determine them from the conflicting state- 
ments of eye-witnesses, were about as follows: — The affair was an election row, of course. Nine- 
tenths of the ghastly butcheries that disgrace the city now-a-days grow out of the bickerings and 
jealousies and animosities engendered by these accursed elections. Rome would be the gainer by 
it if her very constables were elected to serve a century ; for in our experience we have never even been 
able to choose a dog-pelter without celebrating the event with a dozen knock-downs and a general 
cramming of the station-house with drunken vagabonds over-night. It is said that when the 
immense majority for Caesar at the polls in the market was declared the other day, and the crown 
was offered to that gentleman, even his amazing unselfishness in refusing it three times was not 
sufficient to save him from the whispered insults of such men as Casca, of the Tenth Ward, and 
other hirelings of the disappointed candidate, hailing mostly from the Eleventh and Thirteenth 
and other outside districts, who were overheard speaking ironically and contemptuously of Mr. 
Caesar's conduct upon that occasion. 

"We are further informed that there are many among us who think they are justified in believ- 
ing that the assassination of Julius Caesar was a put-up thing — a cut-and-dried arrangement, 
hatched by Marcus Brutus and a lot of his hired roughs, and carried out only too faithfully according 
to the programme. Whether there be good grounds for this suspicion or not, we leave to the people to 
judge for themselves, only asking that they will read the following account of the sad occurrence 
carefully and dispassionately before they render that judgment. 

" The Senate was already in session, and Caesar was coming down the street towards the capitol, 
conversing with some personal friends, and followed as usual, by a large number of citizens. Just 
as he was passing in front of Demosthenes and Thucydides' drug-store, he was observing casually 
to a gentleman, who, our informant thinks, is a fortune-teller, that the Ides of March were come. 
The reply was, ' Yes, they are come, but not gone yet.' At this moment Artemidorus stepped up 
and passed the time of day, and asked Caesar to read a schedule or a tract or something of the kind, 
which he had brought for his perusal. Mr. Decius Brutus also said something about an 'humble 
suit' which he wanted read. Artemidorus begged that attention might be paid to his first, because 
it was of personal consequence to Caesar. The latter replied that what concerned himself should 
be read last, or words to that effect. Artemidorus begged and beseeched him to read the paper 



164 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



instantly. * However. Caesar shook him off, and refused to read any petition in the street. He 
then entered the capitol, and the crowd followed him. 

" About this time the following conversation was overheard, and we consider that, taken in con- 
nection with the events which succeeded it, it bears an appalling significance : Mr. Papilius Lena 
remarked to George W. Cassius (commonly known as the ' Nobby Boy of the Third Ward'), a 
bruiser in the pay of the Opposition, that he hoped his enterprise to-day might thrive ; and when 
Cassius asked 'What enterprise ?' he only closed his left eye temporarily and said with simulated 
indifference, ' Fare you well,' and sauntered towards Caesar. Marcus Brutus who is suspected of 
being the ringleader of the band that killed Caesar, asked what it was that Lena had said. Cassius told 
him, and added in a low tone, ' I fear our purpose is discovered. 1 

" Brutus told his wretched accomplice to keep an eye on Lena, and a moment after Cassius urged 




that lean and hungry vagrant, Casca whose reputation here is none of the best, to be sudden for 
he feared prevention. He then turned to Brutus, apparently much excited, and asked what should 
be done, and swore that either he or Caesar should never turn back — he would kill himself first. At 
this time Caesar was talking to some of the back-country members about the approaching fall 
elections, and paying little attention to what was going on around him. Billy Trebonius got into 



* Mark that: it is hinted by William Shakespeare, who saw the beginning and the end of the unfortunate affray, 
th»t this " schedule" was simply a note discovering to Caesar that a plot was brewing to take his life. 



KILLING OF JULIUS CsESAR "LOCALIZED." 



165 



conversation with the. people'^ friend and Caesar's — Mark Antony — and under some pretence or 
other got him away, and Brutus, Decius, Casca, Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and others of the gang of 
infamous desperadoes that infest Rome at present, closed around the doomed Caesar. Then Metellus 
Cimber knelt down and begged that his brother might be recalled from banishment, but Caesar 
rebuked him for his fawning conduct, and refused to grant his petition. Immediately, at Cimber's 
request, first Brutus and then Cassius begged for the return of the banished Publius ; but Caesar 
still refused. He said he could not be moved ; that he was as fixed as the North Star, and pro- 
ceeded to speak in the most complimentary terms of the firmness of that star, and its steady charac- 
ter. Then he said he was like it, and he believed he was the only man in the country that was ; 
therefore, since he was ' constant ' that Cimber should be banished, he was also ' constant ' that he 
should stay banished, and he'd be hanged if he didn't keep him so ! 

" Instantly seizing upon this shallow pretext for a fight, Casca sprang at Caesar and struck 
him with a dirk, Caesar grabbing him by the arm with his right hand, and launching a blow 
straight from the shoulder with his left, that sent the reptile bleeding to the earth. He then backed 
up against Pompey's statue, and squared himself to receive his assailants. Cassius and Cimber and 
Cinna rushed upon him with their daggers drawn, and the former succeeded in inflicting a wound 
upon his body ; but before he could strike again, and before either of the others could strike at all, 
Caesar stretched the three miscreants at his feet with as many blows of his powerful fist. By this 
time the Senate was in an indescribable uproar; the throng of citizens in the lobbies had blockaded 
the doors in their frantic efforts to escape from the building, the sergeant-at-arms and his assistants 
were struggling with the assassins, venerable senators had cast aside their encumbering robes, and 
were leap'ng over benches and flying down the aisles in wild confusion towards the shelter of the 
committee-rooms, and a thousand voices were shouting ' Po-lice ! Po-lice ! ' in discordant tones that 
rose above the frightful din like shrieking winds above the roaring of a tempest. And amid it all, 
great Caesar stood with his back against the statue, like a lion at bay, and fought his assailants 
weaponless and hand to hand, with the defiant bearing and the unwavering courage which he had 
shown before on many a bloody field. Billy Trebonius and Caius Legarius struck him with their 
daggers and fell, as their brother-conspirators before them had fallen. But at last, when Caesar 
saw his old friend Brutus step forward armed with a murderous knife, it is said he seemed utterly 
overpowered with grief and amazement, and dropping his invincible left arm by his side, he hid his 
face in the folds of his mantle and received the treacherous blow without an effort to stay the hand 
that gave it. He only said, ' Et tu, Brute? ' and fell lifeless, on the marble pavement. 

"We learn that the coat deceased had on when he was killed was the same he wore in his tent on 




the afternoon of the day he overcame the Nervii, and that when it was removed from the corpse it 
was found to be cut and gashed in no less than seven different places. There was nothing in the 



1 66 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

pockets. It will be exhibited at the coroner's inquest, and will be damning proof of the fact of the 
killing. These latter facts may be relied on, as we get them from Mark Antony, whose position 
enables him to learn every item of news connected with the one subject of absorbing interest of 
to-day. 

" Later. — While the coroner was summoning a jury, Mark Antony and other friends of the 
late Caesar got hold of the body, and lugged it off to the Forum, and at last accounts Antony and 
Brutus were making speeches over it and raising such a row among the people that, as we go to 
press, the chief of police is satisfied there is going to be a riot, and is taking measures accordingly." 



THE WIDOW'S PROTEST. 



ONE of the saddest things that ever came under my notice (said the banker's 
clerk) was there in Corning, during the war. Dan Murphy enlisted as a 
private, and fought very bravely. The boys all liked him, and when a 
wound by-and-by weakened him down till carrying a musket was too heavy work 
for him, they clubbed together and fixed him up as a sutler. He made money then, 
and sent it always to his wife to bank for him. She was a washer and ironer, and 
knew enough by hard experience to keep money when she got it. She didn't waste 
a penny. On the contrary, she began to get miserly as her bank account grew. 
She grieved to part with a cent, poor creature, for twice in her hard-working life 
she had known what it was to be hungry, cold, friendless, sick, and without a 
dollar in the world, and she had a haunting dread of suffering so again. Well, at 
last Dan died ; and the boys, in testimony of their esteem and respect for him, tele- 
graphed to Mrs. Murphy to know if she would like to have him embalmed and sent 
home; when you know the usual custom was to dump a poor devil like him into a 
shallow hole, and then inform his friends what had become of him. Mrs. Murphy 
jumped to the conclusion that it would only cost two or three dollars to embalm 
her dead husband, and so she telegraphed "Yes." It was at the "wake" that the 
bill for embalming arrived and was presented to the widow. 

She uttered a wild sad wail that pierced every heart, and said, " Sivinty-foive 
dollars for stooffin' Dan, blister their sowls! Did thim divils suppose I was goin' 
to stairt a Museim, that I'd be dalin' in such expinsive curiassities! " 

The banker's clerk said there was not a dry eye in the house. 



»»"/. 



: .. 

mL MM 





UR esteemed friend, Mr. John 
William Bloke, of Virginia City, 
walked into the office where we 
are sub-editor at a late hour last night, 
with an expression of profound and 
heartfelt suffering upon his countenance, 
and sighing heavily, laid the following 
item reverently upon the desk, and 
walked slowly out again. He paused a 
moment at the door, and seemed strug- 
gling to command his feelings sufficient- 
ly to enable him to speak, and then, 
nodding his head towards his manuscript, ejaculated in a broken voice, 
" Friend of mine— oh ! how sad ! " and burst into tears. We were so moved 

167 



dVr 



1 68 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

at his distress that we did not think to call him back and endeavor to comfort 
him until he was gone, and it was too late. The paper had already gone to 
press, but knowing that our friend would consider the publication of this item 
important, and cherishing the hope that to print it would afford a melancholy- 
satisfaction to his sorrowing heart, we stopped the press at once and inserted 
it in our columns : — 

Distressing Accident. — Last evening, about six o'clock, as Mr. William Schuyler, an old and 
respectable citizen of South Park, was leaving his residence to go down town, as has been his usual 
custom for many years with the exception only of a short interval in the spring of 1850, during 
which he was confined to his bed by injuries received in attempting to stop a runaway horse by 
thoughtlessly placing himself directly in its wake and throwing up his hands and shouting, which 
if he had done so even a single moment sooner, must inevitably have frightened the animal still 
more instead of checking its speed, although disastrous enough to himself as it was, and rendered 
more melancholy and distressing by reason of the presence of his wife's mother, who was there 
and saw the sad occurrence, notwithstanding it is at least likely, though not necessarily so, that she 
should be reconnoitering in another direction when incidents occur, not being vivacious and on the 
look out, as a general thing, but even the reverse, as her own mother is said to have stated, who is 
no more, but died in the full hope of a glorious resurrection, upwards of three years ago, aged 
eighty-six, being a Christian woman and without guile, as it were, or property, in consequence of 
the fire of 1849, which destroyed every single thing she had in the world. But such is life. Let us 
all take warning by this solemn occurrence, and let us endeavor so to conduct ourselves that when 
we come to die we can do it. Let us place our hands upon our heart, and say with earnestness and 
sincerity that from this day forth we will beware of the intoxicating bowl. — First Edition of the 
Califomian. 

The head editor has been in here raising the mischief, and tearing his hair and 
kicking the furniture about, and abusing me like a pick-pocket. He says that 
every time he leaves me in charge of the paper for half an hour, I get imposed 
upon by the first infant or the first idiot that comes along. And he says that 
that distressing item of Mr. Bloke's is nothing but a lot of distressing bosh, and 
has no point to it, and no sense in it, and no information in it, and that there 
was no sort of necessity for stopping the press to publish it. 

Now all this comes of being good-hearted. If I had been as unaccommoda- 
ting and unsympathetic as some people, I would have told Mr. Bloke that I 
wouldn't receive his communication at such a late hour; but no, his snuffling 
distress touched my heart, and I jumped at the chance of doing something to 
modify his misery. I never read his item to see whether there was anything 
wrong about it, but hastily wrote the few lines which preceded it, and sent it to 
the printers. And what has my kindness done for me ? It has done nothing 
but bring down upon me a storm of abuse and ornamental blasphemy. 



MR. BLOKE'S ITEM. 



169 



Now I will read that item myself, and see if there is any foundation for all 

this fuss. And if there is, the author of it shall hear from me. 

********** 

I have read it, and I am bound to admit that it seems a little mixed at a first 
glance. However, I will peruse it once more. 

tC ■!• Tpf •!• «J5 tPT tIP 90C 9 fl» 

I have read it again, and it does really seem a good deal more mixed than 

ever. 

********** 

I have read it over five times, but if I can get at the meaning of it, I wish I 




may get my just deserts. It won't bear analysis. There are things about it 
which I cannot understand at all. It don't say whatever became of William 
Schuyler. It just says enough about him to get one interested in his career, and 
then drops him. Who is William Schuyler, anyhow, and what part of South 
Park did he live in, and if he started down town at six o'clock, did he ever get 



170 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

there, and if he did, did anything happen to him ? Is he the individual that met 
with the "distressing accident?" Considering the elaborate circumstantiality 
of detail observable in the item, it seems to me that it ought to contain more 
information than it does. On the contrary, it is obscure — and not only obscure, 
but utterly incomprehensible. Was the breaking of Mr. Schuyler's leg, fifteen 
years ago, the " distressing accident " that plunged Mr. Bloke into unspeakable 
grief, and caused him to come up here at dead of night and stop our press to 
acquaint the world with the circumstance? Or did the " distressing accident" 
consist in the destruction of Schuyler's mother-in-law's property in early times? 
Or did it consist in the death of that person herself three years ago ? (albeit it 
does not appear that she died by accident.) In a word, what did that " distress- 
ing accident " consist in ? What did that drivelling ass of a Schuyler stand in 
the wake of a runaway horse for, with his shouting and gesticulating, if he 
wanted to stop him ? And how the mischief could he get run over by a 
horse that had already passed beyond him ? And what are we to take " warning " 
by ? and how is this extraordinary chapter of incomprehensibilities going to be 
a " lesson" to us? And, above all, what has the intoxicating u bowl " got to do 
with it, anyhow ? It is not stated that Schuyler drank, or that his wife drank, 
or that his mother-in-law drank, or that the horse drank — w T herefore, then, the 
reference to the intoxicating bowl? It does seem to me that if Mr. Bloke had 
let the intoxicating bowl alone himself, he never would have got into so much 
trouble about this exasperating imaginary accident. I have read this absurd 
item over and over again, with all its insinuating plausibility, until my head 
swims ; but I can make neither head nor tail of it. There certainly seems to 
have been an accident of some kind or other, but it is impossible to determine 
what the nature of it was, or who was the sufferer by it. I do not like to do it, 
but I feel compelled to request that the next time anything happens to one of 
Mr. Bloke's friends, he w T ill append such explanatory notes to his account of it 
as will enable me to find out what sort of an accident it was and whom it hap- 
pened to. I had rather all his friends should die than that I should be driven 
to the verge of lunacy again in trying to cipher out the meaning of another 
such production as the above. 




T was night. Stillness reigned in 
the grand old feudal castle of Klu- 
genstein. The year 1222 was draw- < j 
ing to a close. Far away up in the 
tallest of the castle's towers a single 
light glimmered. A secret council was 
being held there. The stern old lord 
of Klugenstein sat in a chair of state 
meditating. Presently he said, with a 
tender accent — " My daughter! " 
A young man of noble presence, clad from head to heel in knightly 
answered — " Speak, father ! " 

171 



mail, 



172 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

" My daughter, the time is come for the revealing of the mystery that hath 
puzzled all your young life. Know, then, that it had its birth in the matters which 
I shall now unfold. My brother Ulrich is the great Duke of Brandenburgh. Our 
father, on his deathbed, decreed that if no son were born to Ulrich the succession 
should pass to my house, provided a son were born to me. And further, in case no 
son were born to either, but only daughters, then the succession should pass to 
Ulrich's daughter if she proved stainless; if she did not, my daughter should 
succeed if she retained a blameless name. And so I and my old wife here prayed 
fervently for the good boon of a son, but the prayer was vain. You were born to 
us. I was in despair. I saw the mighty prize slipping from my grasp — the splendid 
dream vanishing away ! And I had been so hopeful ! Five years had Ulrich lived 
in wedlock, and yet his wife had borne no heir of either sex. 

"'But hold,' I said, 'all is not lost.' A saving scheme had shot athwart my 
brain. You were born at midnight. Only the leech, the nurse, and six waiting- 
women knew your sex. I hanged them every one before an hour sped. Next 
morning all the barony went mad with rejoicing over the proclamation that a son 
was born to Klugenstein — an heir to mighty Brandenburgh ! And well the secret 
has been kept. Your mother's own sister nursed your infancy, and from that time 
forward we feared nothing. 

" When you were ten years old a daughter was born to Ulrich. We grieved, but 
hoped for good results from measles, or physicians, or other natural enemies of 
infancy, but were always disappointed. She lived, she throve — Heaven's malison 
upon her ! But it is nothing. We are safe. For, ha! ha! have we not a son? 
And is not our son the future Duke ? Our well-beloved Conrad, is it not so? — for 
woman of eight-and-twenty years as you are, my child, none other name than that 
hath ever fallen to you! 

" Now it hath come to pass that age hath laid its hand upon my brother, and he 
waxes feeble. The cares of state do tax him sore, therefore he wills that you shall 
come to him and be already Duke in act, though not yet in name. Your servitors 
are ready — you journey forth to-night. 

" Now listen well. Remember every word I say. There is a law as old as Ger- 
many, that if any woman sit for a single instant in the great ducal chair before she 



A MEDIAEVAL ROMANCE. 173 



hath been absolutely crowned in presence of the people — she shall die ! So heed 
my words. Pretend humility. Pronounce your judgments from the Premier's 
chair, which stands at the foot of the throne. Do this until you are crowned and 
safe. It is not likely that your sex will ever be discovered, but still it is the part 
of wisdom to make all things as safe as may be in this treacherous earthly life." 

" O my father ! is it for this my life hath been a lie ? Was it that I might cheat 
my unoffending cousin of her rights? Spare me, father, spare your child!" 

" What, hussy ! Is this my reward for the august fortune my brain has wrought 
for thee ? By the bones of my father, this puling sentiment of thine but ill accords 
with my humor. Betake thee to the Duke instantly, and beware how thou meddlest 
with my purpose !" 

Let this suffice of the conversation. It is enough for us to know that the prayers, 
the entreaties, and the tears of the gentle-natured girl availed nothing. Neither 
they nor anything could move the stout old lord of Klugenstein. And so, at last, 
with a heavy heart, the daughter saw the castle gates close behind her, and found 
herself riding away in the darkness surrounded by a knightly array of armed vassals 
and a brave following of servants. 

The old baron sat silent for many minutes after his daughter's departure, and 
then he turned to his sad wife, and said — 

" Dame, our matters seem speeding fairly. It is full three months since I sent 
the shrewd and handsome Count Detzin on his devilish mission to my brother's 
daughter Constance. If he fail we are not wholly safe, but if he do succeed no 
power can bar our girl from being Duchess, e'en though ill fortune should decree 
she never should be Duke !" 

" My heart is full of bodings ; yet all may still be well." 

" Tush, woman ! Leave the owls to croak. To bed with ye, and dream of 
Brandenburgh and grandeur!" 

CHAPTER II. 

FESTIVITY AND TEARS. 

Six days after the occurrences related in the above chapter, the brilliant capital 
of the Duchy of Brandenburgh was resplendent with military pageantry, and noisy 



174 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

with the rejoicings of loyal multitudes, for Conrad, the young heir to the crown, 
was come. The old Duke's heart was full of happiness, for Conrad's handsome 
person and graceful bearing had won his love at once. The great halls of the 
palace were thronged with nobles, who welcomed Conrad bravely; and so bright 
and happy did all things seem, that he felt his fears and sorrows passing away, and 
giving place to a comforting contentment. 

But in a remote apartment of the palace a scene of a different nature was trans- 
piring. By a window stood the Duke's only child, the Lady Constance. Her eyes 
were red and swollen, and full of tears. She was alone. Presently she fell to 
weeping anew, and said aloud — 

"The villain Detzin is gone — has fled the dukedom ! I could not believe it at 
first, but, alas ! it is too true. And I loved him so. I dared to love him though I 
knew the Duke my father would never let me wed him. I loved him — but now I 
hate him ! With all my soul I hate him ! Oh, what is to become of me ? I am 
lost, lost, lost! I shall go mad!" 

CHAPTER III. 

THE PLOT THICKENS. 

A few months drifted by. All men published the praises of the young Conrad h s 
government, and extolled the wisdom of his judgments, the mercifulness of his 
sentences, and the modesty with which he bore himself in his great office. The 
old Duke soon gave everything into his hands, and sat apart and listened with 
proud satisfaction while his heir delivered the decrees of the crown from the seat 
of the Premier. It seemed plain that one so loved and praised and honored of all 
men as Conrad was could not be otherwise than happy. But, strangely enough, he 
was not. For he saw with dismay that the Princess Constance had begun to love 
him ! The love of the rest of the world was happy fortune for him, but this was 
freighted with danger ! And he saw, moreover, that the delighted Duke had dis- 
covered his daughter's passion likewise, and was already dreaming of a marriage. 
Every day somewhat of the deep sadness that had been in the princess's face faded 
away ; every day hope and animation beamed brighter from her eye ; and by and 
by even vagrant smiles visited the face that had been so troubled. 



A MEDIEVAL ROMANCE. 175 



Conrad was appalled. He bitterly cursed himself for having yielded to the 
instinct that had made him seek the companionship of one of his own sex when he 
was new and a stranger in the palace — when he was sorrowful and yearned for a 
sympathy such as only women can give or feel. He now began to avoid his cousin. 
But this only made matters worse, for naturally enough, the more he avoided her 
the more she cast herself in his way. He marvelled at this at first, and next it 
startled him. The girl haunted him ; she hunted him ; she happened upon him at 
all times and in all places, in the night as well as in the day. She seemed singu- 
larly anxious. There was surely a mystery somewhere. 

This could not go on for ever. All the world was talking about it. The Duke 
was beginning to look perplexed. Poor Conrad was becoming a very ghost through 
dread and dire distress. One day as he was emerging from a private ante-room 
attached to the picture gallery Constance confronted him, and seizing both his 
hands in hers, exclaimed — 

" Oh, why do you avoid me ? What have I done — what have I said, to lose 
your kind opinion of me — for surely I had it once? Conrad, do not despise me, 
but pity a tortured heart? I cannot, cannot hold the words unspoken longer, lest 
they kill me — I love you, Conrad ! There, despise me if you must, but they 
would be uttered !" 

Conrad was speechless. Constance hesitated a moment, and then, misinterpret- 
ing his silence, a wild gladness flamed in her eyes, and she flung her arms about 
his neck and said — 

" You relent ! you relent ! You can love me — you will love me ! Oh, say you 
will, my own, my worshipped Conrad!" 

Conrad groaned aloud. A sickly pallor overspread his countenance, and he 
trembled like an aspen. Presently, in desperation, he thrust the poor girl from 
him, and cried — 

"You know not what you ask ! It is for ever and ever impossible !" And then 
he fled like a criminal, and left the princess stupefied with amazement. A minute 
afterward she was crying and sobbing there, and Conrad was crying and sobbing 
in his chamber. Both were in despair. Both saw ruin staring them in the face. 

By and by Constance rose slowly to her feet and moved away, saying — 



176 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

" To think that he was despising my love at the very moment that I thought it 
was melting his cruel heart ! I hate him ! He spurned me — did this man — he 
spurned me from him like a dog !" 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE AWFUL REVELATION. 

Time passed on. A settled sadness rested once more upon the countenance of 
the good Duke's daughter. She and Conrad were seen together no more now. 
The Duke grieved at this. But as the weeks wore away Conrad's color came back 
to his cheeks, and his old-time vivacity to his eye, and he administered the govern- 
ment with a clear and steadily ripening wisdom. 

Presently a strange whisper began to be heard about the palace. It grew louder; 
it spread farther. The gossips of the city got hold of it. It swept the dukedom. 
And this is what the whisper said — 

"The Lady Constance hath given birth to a child!" 

When the lord of Klugenstein heard it he swung his plumed helmet thrice around 
his head and shouted — 

" Long live Duke Conrad ! — for lo, his crown is sure from this day forward ! 
Detzin has done his errand well, and the good scoundrel shall be rewarded !" 

And he spread the tidings far and wide, and for eight-and-forty hours no soul in 
all the barony but did dance and sing, carouse and illuminate, to celebrate the 
great event, and all at proud and happy old Klugenstein 's expense. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE frightful catastrophe. 

The trial was at hand. All the great lords and barons of Brandenburgh were 
assembled in the Hall of Justice in the ducal palace. No space was left unoccupied 
where there was room for a spectator to stand or sit. Conrad, clad in purple and 
ermine, sat in the Premier's chair, and on either side sat the great judges of the 
realm. The old Duke had sternly commanded that the trial of his daughter should 
proceed without favor, and then had taken to his bed broken-hearted. His days 



A MEDIEVAL ROMANCE. 177 

were numbered. Poor Conrad had begged, as for his very life, that he might be 
spared the misery of sitting in judgment upon his cousin's crime, but it did not 
avail. 

The saddest heart in all that great assemblage was in Conrad's breast. 

The gladdest was in his father's, for, unknown to his daughter " Conrad," the old 
Baron Klugenstein was come, and was among the crowd of nobles triumphant in 
the swelling fortunes of his house. 

After the heralds had made due proclamation and the other preliminaries had 
followed, the venerable Lord Chief-Justice said — " Prisoner, stand forth !" 

The unhappy princess rose, and stood unveiled before the vast multitude. The 
Lord Chief-Justice continued — 

" Most noble lady, before the great judges of this realm it hath been charged 
and proven that out of holy wedlock your Grace hath given birth unto a child, and 
by our ancient law the penalty is death excepting in one sole contingency, whereof 
his Grace the acting Duke, our good Lord Conrad, will advertise you in his solemn 
sentence now; wherefore give heed." 

Conrad stretched forth his reluctant sceptre, and in the self-same moment the 
womanly heart beneath his robe yearned pityingly toward the doomed prisoner, 
and the tears came into his eyes. He opened his lips to speak, but the Lord Chief- 
Justice said quickly — 

" Not there, your Grace, not there ! It is not lawful to pronounce judgment upon 
any of the ducal line save from the ducal throne!" 

A shudder went to the heart of poor Conrad, and a tremor shook the iron frame 
of his old father likewise. Conrad had not been crowned — dared he profane 
the throne? He hesitated and turned pale with fear. But it must be done. 
Wondering eyes were already upon him. They would be suspicious eyes if he 
hesitated longer. He ascended the throne. Presently he stretched forth the 
sceptre again, and said — 

" Prisoner, in the name of our sovereign Lord Ulrich, Duke of Brandenburgh, I 
proceed to the solemn duty that hath devolved upon me. Give heed to my words. 
By the ancient law of the land, except you produce the partner of your guilt and 
deliver him up to the executioner you must surely die. Embrace this opportunity 
— save yourself while yet you may. Name the father of your child!" 
12 



178 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



A solemn hush fell upon the great court — a silence so profound that men could 
hear their own hearts beat. Then the princess slowly turned, with eyes gleaming 
with hate, and pointing her finger straight at Conrad, said — 

" Thou art the man !" 

An appalling conviction of his helpless, hopeless peril struck a chill to Conrad's 




heart like the chill of death itself. What power on earth could save him ! To 

disprove the charge he must reveal that he was a woman, and for an uncrowned 

woman to sit in the ducal chair was death ! At one and the same moment he and 

his grim old father swooned and fell to the ground. 

********** 



A MEDIAEVAL ROMANCE. 179 



The remainder of this thrilling and eventful story will not be found in this or 
any other publication, either now or at any future time. 

The truth is, I have got my hero (or heroine) into such a particularly close place 
that I do not see how I am ever going to get him (or her) out of it again, and 
therefore I will wash my hands of the whole business, and leave that person to get 
out the best way that offers — or else stay there. I thought it was going to be easy 
enough to straighten out that little difficulty, but it looks different now. 



PETITION CONCERNING COPYRIGHT. 

TO THE HONORABLE THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS 
ASSEMBLED ; 

Whereas, The Constitution guarantees equal rights to all, backed by the Declara- 
tion of Independence; and 

Whereas, Under our laws, the right of property in real estate is perpetual; and 

Whereas, Under our laws, the right of property in the literary result of a citizen's 
intellectual labor is restricted to forty-two years; and 

Whereas, Forty-two years seems an exceedingly just and righteous term, and a 
sufficiently long one for the retention of property: 

Therefore, Your petitioner, having the good of his country solely at heart, humbly 

prays that "equal rights" and fair and equal treatment may be meted out to all 

citizens, by the restriction of rights in all property, real estate included, to the 

beneficent term of forty-two years. Then shall all men bless your honorable body 

and be happy. And for this will your petitioner ever pray. 

Mark Twain. 

a paragraph not added to the petition. 

The charming absurdity of restricting property-rights in books to forty-two years 
sticks prominently out in the fact that hardly any man's books ever live forty-two 
years, or even the half of it ; and so, for the sake of getting a shabby advantage of 
the heirs of about one Scott or Burns or Milton in a hundred years, the law makers 
of the "Great " Republic are content to leave that poor little pilfering edict upon 
the statute books. It is like an emperor lying in wait to rob a phenix's nest, and 

waiting the necessary century to get the chance. 



M 



AFTER-DINNER SPEECH. 

[AT A FOURTH-OF-JULY GATHERING, IN LONDON, OF AMERICANS.] 

R. CHAIRMAN AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I thank 
you for the compliment which has just been tendered me, and to show 
my appreciation of it I will not afflict you with many words. It is 
pleasant to celebrate in this peaceful way, upon this old mother soil, the 
anniversary of an experiment which was born of war with this same land 
so long ago, and wrought out to a successful issue by the devotion of our 
ancestors. It has taken nearly a hundred years to bring the English and 
Americans into kindly and mutually appreciative relations, but I believe 
it has been accomplished at last. It was a great step when the two last 
misunderstandings were settled by arbitration instead of cannon. It is another 
great step when England adopts our sewing machines without claiming the 
invention — as usual. It was another when they imported one of our sleeping 
cars the other day. And it warmed my heart more than I can tell, yesterday, when 
I witnessed the spectacle of an Englishman ordering an American sherry cob- 
bler of his own free will and accord — and not. only that but with a great brain 
and a level head reminding the bar-keeper not to forget the strawberries. 
With a common origin, a common language, a common literature, a common 
religion and — common drinks, what is longer needful to the cementing of the 
two nations together in a permanent bond of brotherhood? 

This is an age of progress, and ours is a progressive land. A great and 
glorious land, too — a land which has developed a Washington, a Franklin, a 
Wm. M. Tweed, a Longfellow, a Motley, a Jay Gould, a Samuel C. Pomeroy, a 
recent Congress which has never had its equal — (in some respects) and a United 
States Army which conquered sixty Indians in eight months by tiring them out 
— which is much better than uncivilized slaughter, God knows. We have a 
criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is 
only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know any- 
thing and can't read. And I may observe that we have an insanity plea that 

~_ 1 80 



AFTER-DINNER SPEECH. 181 



would have saved Cain. I think 1 can say, and say with pride, that we have 
some legislatures that bring higher prices than any in the world. 

I refer with effusion to our railway system, which consents to let us live, 
though it might do the opposite, being our owners. It only destroyed three 
thousand and seventy lives last year by collisions, and twenty-seven thousand 
two hundred and sixty by running over heedless and unnecessary people at 
crossings. The companies seriously regretted the killing of these thirty thou- 
sand people, and went so far as to pay for some of them — voluntarily, of course, 
for the meanest of us would not claim that we possess a court treacherous 
enough to enforce a law against a railway company. But thank Heaven the 
railway companies are generally disposed to do the right and kindly thing with- 
out compulsion. I know of an instance which greatly touched me at the time. 
After an accident the company sent home the remains of a dear distant old rela- 
tive of mine in a basket, with the remark. " Please state what figure you hold him 
at — and return the basket.'' Now there couldn't be anything friendlier than that. 

But I must not stand here .and brag all night. However, you won't mind a 
body bragging a little about his country on the fourth of July. It is a fair and 
legitimate time to fly the eagle. I will say only one more word of brag — and a 
hopeful one. It is this. We have a form of government which gives each man 
a fair chance and no favor. With us no individual is born with a right to look 
down upon his neighbor and hold him in contempt. Let such of us as are not 
dukes find our consolation in that. And we may find hope for the future in the 
fact that as unhappy as is the condition of our political morality to-day, Eng- 
land has risen up out of a far fouler since the days when Charles I. ennobled 
courtezans and all political place was a matter of bargain and sale. There is 
hope for us yet. * 

* At least the above is the speech which I was going to make, but our minister, Gen. Schenck, 
presided, and after the blessing, got up and made a great long inconceivably dull harangue, and 
wound up by saying that inasmuch as speech-making did not seem to exhilarate the guests much, 
all further oratory would be dispensed with, during the evening, and we could just sit and talk pri- 
vately to our elbow-neighbors and have a good sociable time. It is known that in consequence of 
that remark forty-four perfected speeches died in the womb. The depression, the gloom, the 
solemnity that reigned over the banquet from that time forth will be a lasting memory with many 
that were there. By that one thoughtless remark Gen. Schenck lost forty-four of the best friends he 
had in England. More than one said that night, "And this is the sort of person that is sent to 
represent us in a great sister empire !" 




a dark complexion naturally, 

and this effect is heightened by 

artificial aids which cost her 

nothing. She wears curls — 
very black ones, and I had an impression that she gave their native attract- 
iveness a lift with rancid butter. She wears a reddish check handkerchief, 

182 



TJONISING MURDERERS. 183 



cast loosely around her neck, and it was plain that her other one is slow getting 
back from the wash. I presume she takes snuff. At any rate, something 
resembling it had lodged among the hairs sprouting from her upper lip. I 
know she likes garlic — I knew that as soon as she sighed. She looked at me 
searchingly for nearly a minute, with her black eyes, and then said — 

" It is enough. Come ! " 

She started down a very dark and dismal corridor — I stepping close after her. 
Presently she stopped, and said that, as the way was so crooked and dark, 
perhaps she had better get a light. But it seemed ungallant to allow a woman 
to put herself to so much trouble for me, and so I said — 

" It is not worth while, madam. If you will heave another sigh, I think I 
can follow it." 

So we got along all right. Arrived at her official and mysterious den, she 
asked me to tell her the date of my birth, the exact hour of that occurrence, and 
the color of my grandmother's hair. I answered as accurately as I could. Then 
she said — 

" Young man, summon your fortitude — do not tremble. I am about to reveal 
the past." 

Information concerning the future would be in a general way, more " 

"Silence! You have had much trouble, some joy, some good fortune, some 
bad. Your great grandfather was hanged." 

" That is a 1—." 

" Silence ! Hanged sir. But it was not his fault. He could not help it." 

"I am glad you do him justice." 

"Ah — grieve, rather, that the jury did. He was hanged. His star crosses 
yours in the fourth division, fifth sphere. Consequently you will be hanged 
also." 

" In view of this cheerful " 

" I must have silence. Yours was not, in the beginning, a criminal nature, 
but circumstances changed it. At the age of nine you stole sugar. At the 
age of fifteen you stole money. At twenty you stole horses. At twenty-five 
you committed arson. At thirty, hardened in crime, you became an editor. 



1S4 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



You are now a public lecturer. Worse things are in store for you. You will 
be sent to Congress. Next, to the penitentiary. Finally, happiness will come 
again — all will be well — you will be hanged." 

I was now in tears. It seemed hard enough to go to Congress ; but to be 
hanged — this was too sad, too dreadful. The woman seemed surprised at my 
grief. I told her the thoughts that were in my mind. Then she comforted me. 

"Why, man,"* she said, "hold up your head— you have nothing to grieve 
about. Listen. You will live in New Hampshire. In your sharp need and 
distress the Brown family will succor you — such of them as Pike the assassin 
left alive. They will be benefactors to you. When you shall have grown fat 
upon their bounty, and are grateful and happy, you will desire to make some 
modest return for these things, and so you will go to the house some night and 
brain the whole family with an axe. You will rob the dead bodies of your 
benefactors, and disburse your gains in riotous living among the rowdies and 
courtesans of Boston. Then you will be arrested, tried, condemned to be 
hanged, thrown into prison. Now is your happy day. You will be converted 
— you will be converted just as soon as every effort to compass pardon, commu- 
tation, or reprieve has failed — and then ! Why, then, every morning and every 



* In this paragraph the fortune-teller details the exact history of the Pike-Brown assassination 
case in New Hampshire, from the succoring and saving of the stranger Pike by the Browns, to the 
subsequent hanging and coffining of that treacherous miscreant. She adds nothing, invents nothing, 
exaggerates nothing (see any New England paper for November 1869). This Pike-Brown case is 
selected merely as a type, to illustrate a custom that prevails, not in New Hampshire alone, but in 
every State in the union — I mean the sentimental custom of visiting, petting, glorifying, and snuffling 
over murderers like this Pike, from the day they enter the jail under sentence of death until they 
swing from the gallows. The following extract from the Temple Bar (1866) reveals the fact that 
this custom is not confined to the United States: — "On December 31st, 1841, a man named John 
Johnes, a shoemaker, murdered his sweetheart, Mary Hallam, the daughter of a respectable laborer, 
at Mansfield, in the county of Nottingham. He was executed on March 23d, 1842. He was a man 
of unsteady habits, and gave way to violent fits of passion. The girl declined his addresses, and he 
said if he did not have her no one else should. After he had inflicted the first wound, which was 
not immediately fatal, she begged for her life, but seeing him resolved, asked for time to pray. He 
said that he would pray for both, and completed the crime. The wounds were inflicted by a 
shoemaker's knife, and her throat was cut barbarously. After this he dropped on his knees some 
time, and prayed God to have mercy on two unfortunate lovers. He made no attempt to escape, and 
confessed the crime. After his imprisonment he behaved in the most decorous manner ; he won upon 
the good opinion of the jail chaplain, and he was visited by the Bishop of Lincoln. It does not appear 
that he expressed any contrition for the crime, but seemed to pass away with triumphant certainty 
that he was going to rejoin his victim in heaven. He was visited by some pious and benevolent ladies 
of Nottingham, some of whom declared he was a child of God, if ever there was one. One of the ladies 
sent him a white camelia to wear at his execution." 



LIONISING MURDERERS. 



-85 



afternoon, the best and purest young ladies of the village will assemble in your 
cell and sing hymns. This will show that assassination is respectable. Then 
you will write a touching letter, in which you will forgive all those recent 
Browns. This will excite the public admiration. No public can withstand 
magnanimity. Next, they will take you to the scaffold, with great eclat, at the 
head of an imposing procession composed of clergymen, officials, citizens gen- 
erally, and young ladies walking pensively two and two, and bearing bouquets 




and immortelles. You will mount the scaffold, and while the great concourse 
stand uncovered in your presence, you will read your sappy little speech which 
the minister has written for you. And then, in the midst of a grand and impres- 
sive silence, they will swing you into per Paradise, my son. There will not 

be a dry eye on the ground. You will be a hero ! Not a rough there but will 
envy you. Not a rough there but will resolve to emulate you. And next, a 
great procession will follow you to the tomb — will weep over your remains — 



186 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

the young ladies will sing again the hymns made dear by sweet associations 
connected with the jail, and, as a last tribute of affection, respect, and apprecia- 
tion of your many sterling qualities, they will walk two and two around your 
bier, and strew wreaths of flowers on it. And lo ! you are canonized. Think 
of it, son — ingrate, assassin, robber of the dead, drunken brawler among thieves 
and harlots in the slums of Boston one month, and the pet of the pure, and 
innocent daughters of the land the next ! A bloody and hateful devil — a bevvept, 
bewailed, and sainted martyr — all in a month! Fool! — so noble a fortune, and 
yet you sit here grieving!" 

" No, madame," I said, *' you do me wrong, you do indeed. I am perfectly 
satisfied. I did not know before that my great-grandfather was hanged, but it 
is of no consequence. He has probably ceased to bother about it by this time — 
and I have not commenced yet. I confess, madame, that I do something in the 
way of editing and lecturing, but the other crimes you mention have escaped 
my memory. Yet I must have committed them — you would not deceive a 
stranger. But let the past be as it was, and let the future be as it may — these 
are nothing. I have only cared for one thing. I have always felt that I should 
be hanged some day, and somehow the thought has annoyed me considerably; 
but if you can only assure me that I shall be hanged in New Hampshire" 

" Not a shadow of a doubt !" 

" Bless you, my benefactress ! — excuse this embrace — you have removed a 
great load from my breast. To be hanged in New Hampshire is happiness — it 
leaves an honored name behind a man, and introduces him at once into the 
best New Hampshire society in the other world." 

I then took leave of the fortune-teller. But, seriously, is it well to glorify a 
murderous villain on the scaffold, as Pike was glorified in New Hampshire? 
Is it well to turn the penalty for a bloody crime into a reward? Is it just to do 
it? Is it safe? 



'///////// /////A 




LEGISLATION NEEDED. 

THIS country, during the last 
thirty or forty years, has pro- 
duced some of the most re- 
markable cases of insanity of which 
there is any mention in history. 
For instance, there was the Baldwin 
case, in Ohio, twenty-two years ago. 
Baldwin, from his boyhood up, had 
been of a vindictive, malignant, 
quarrelsome nature. He put a boy ? s 
eye out once, and never was heard 
upon any occasion to utter a regret 
for it. He did many such things. 
But at last he did something that 
was serious. He called at a house just after dark, one evening, knocked, and 
when the occupant came to the door, shot him dead, and then tried to escape, 

187 



i88 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

but was captured. Two days before, he had wantonly insulted a helpless cripple, 
and the man he afterward took swift vengeance upon with an assassin bullet had 
knocked him down. Such was the Baldwin case. The trial was long and exciting: 
the community was fearfully wrought up. Men said this spiteful, bad-hearted 
villain had caused grief enough in his time, and now he should satisfy the law. But 
they were mistaken; Baldwin was insane when he did the deed — they had not 
thought of that. By the arguments of counsel it was shown that at half-past ten in 
the morning on the day of the murder, Baldwin became insane, and remained so 
for eleven hours and a half exactly. This just covered the case comfortably, and 
he was acquitted. Thus, if an unthinking and excited community had been 
listened to instead of the arguments of counsel, a poor crazy creature would have 
been held to a fearful responsibility for a mere freak of madness. Baldwin went 
clear, and although his relatives and friends were naturally incensed against the 
community for their injurious suspicions and remarks, they said let it go for this 
time, and did not prosecute. The Baldwins were very wealthy. This same Bald- 
win had momentary fits of insanity twice afterward, and on both occasions killed 
people he had grudges against. And on both these occasions the circumstances of 
the killing were so aggravated, and the murders so seemingly heartless and 
treacherous, that if Baldwin had not been insane he would have been hanged 
without the shadow of a doubt. As it was, it required all his political and family 
influence to get him clear in one of the cases, and cost him not less than 10,000 
dollars to get clear in the other. One of these men he had notoriously been 
threatening to kill for twelve years. The poor creature happened, by the merest 
piece of ill fortune, to come along a dark alley at the very moment that Baldwin's 
insanity came upon him, and so he was shot in the back with a gun loaded with 
slugs. 

Take the case of Lynch Hackett, of Pennsylvania. Twice, in public, he attacked 
a German butcher by the name of Bemis Feldner, with a cane, and both times 
Feldner whipped him with his fists. Hackett was a vain, wealthy, violent gentle- 
man, who held his blood and family in high esteem, and believed that a reverent 
respect was due to his great riches. He brooded over the shame of his chastise- 
ment for two weeks, and then, in a momentary fit of insanity, armed himself to the 



A NEW CRIME. 1 89 



teeth, rode into town, waited a couple of hours until he saw Feldner coming down 
the street with his wife on his arm, and then, as the couple passed the doorway in 
which he had partially concealed himself, he drove a knife into Feldner's neck, 
killing him instantly. The widow caught the limp form and eased it to the earth. 
Both were drenched with blood. Hackett jocosely remarked to her that as a 
professional butcher's recent wife she could appreciate the artistic neatness of the 
job that left her in condition to marry again, in case she wanted to. This remark, 
and another which he made to a friend, that his position in society made the killing 
of an obscure citizen simply an " eccentricity " instead of a crime, were shown to 
be evidences of insanity, and so Hackett escaped punishment. The jury were 
hardly inclined to accept these as proofs, at first, inasmuch as the prisoner had 
never been insane before the murder, and under the tranquilizing effect of the 
butchering had immediately regained his right mind ; but when the defence came 
to show that a third cousin of Hackett's wife's stepfather was insane, and not only 
insane, but had a nose the very counterpart of Hackett's, it was plain that insanity 
was hereditary in the family, and Hackett had come by it by legitimate inheritance. 
Of course the jury then acquitted him. But it was a merciful providence that Mrs. 
H.'s people had been afflicted as shown, else Hackett would certainly have been 
hanged. 

However, it is not possible to recount all the marvellous cases of insanity that 
have come under the public notice in the last thirty or forty years. There was the 
Durgin case in New Jersey three years ago. The servant girl, Bridget Durgin, at 
dead of night, invaded her mistress' bedroom and carved the lady literally to pieces 
with a knife. Then she dragged the body to the middle of the floor, and beat and 
banged it with chairs and such things. Next she opened the feather beds, and 
strewed the contents around, saturated everything with kerosene, and set fire to the 
general wreck. She now took up the young child of the murdered woman in her 
blood-smeared hands, and walked off, through the snow, with no shoes on, to a 
neighbor's hou.se a quarter of a mile off, and told a string of wild, incoherent stories 
about some men coming and setting fire to the house; and then she cried piteously, 
and without seeming to think there was anything suggestive about the blood upon her 
hands, her clothing, and the baby, volunteered the remark that she was afraid those 



IQO MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

men had murdered her mistress! Afterward, by her own confession and other 
testimony, it was proved that the mistress had always been kind to the girl, conse- 
quently there was no revenge in the murder; and it was also shown that the girl 
took nothing away from the burning house, not even her own shoes, and consequently 
robbery was not the motive. Now, the reader says, " Here comes that same old 
plea of insanity again." But the reader has deceived himself this time. No such 
plea was offered in her defence. The judge sentenced her, nobody persecuted the 
Governor with petitions for her pardon and she was promptly hanged. 

There was that youth in Pennsylvania, whose curious confession was published 
some years ago. It was simply a conglomeration of incoherent drivel from begin- 
ning to end, and so was his lengthy speech on the scaffold afterward. For a whole 
year he was haunted with a desire to disfigure a certain young woman, so that no 
one would marry her. He did not love her himself, and did not want to marry her, 
but he did not want anybody else to do it. He would not go anywhere with her, 
and yet was opposed to anybody else's escorting her. Upon one occasion he 
declined to go to a wedding with her, and when she got other company, lay in wait 
for the couple by the road, intending to make them go back or kill the escort. 
After spending sleepless nights over his ruling desire for a full year, he at last 
attempted its execution — that is, attempted to disfigure the young woman. It was 
a success. It was permanent. In trying to shoot her cheek (as she sat at the 
supper table with her parents and brothers and sisters) in such a manner as to mar 
its comeliness, one of his bullets wandered a little out of the course, and she dropped 
dead. To the very last moment of his life he bewailed the ill luck that made her 
move her face just at the critical moment. And so he died, apparently about half 

persuaded that somehow it was chiefly her own fault that she got killed. This 
idiot was hanged. The plea of insanity was not offered. 

Insanity certainly is on the increase in the world, and crime is dying out. There 
are no longer any murders — none worth mentioning, at any rate. Formerly, if you 
killed a man, it was possible that you were insane — but now, if you, having friends 
and money, kill a man it is evidence that you are a lunatic. In these days, too, if a 
person of good family and high social standing steals anything, they call it kleptoma- 
nia, and send him to the lunatic asylum. If a person of high standing squanders 



A NEW CRIME. 191 



his fortune in dissipation, and closes his career with strychnine or a bullet, " Tem- 
porary Aberration " is what was the trouble with him. 

Is not this insanity plea becoming rather common ? Is it not so common that 
"eader confidently expects to see it offered in every criminal case that comes 
before the courts? And is it not so cheap, and so common, and often so trivial, 
that the reader smiles in derision when the newspaper mentions it? And is it not 
curious to note he i it wins acquittal for the prisoner? Of late years 

lot seem possible for ; nan to so conduct himself, before killing another 
man, ^. v<> manifestly in ane. If he talks about the stars, he is insane. If 

he appears nt. nd uneasy an hour before the killing, he is insane. If he 

weeps over a great grie 5 friends shake their heads, and fear that he is "not 
right." If, an hour after the murder, he seems ill at ease, pre-occupied and excited, 
he is unquestionably insane. 

Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against insanity* 
There is where the true evil lies. 




A CURIOUS DREAM. 



CONTAINING A MORAL. 



NIGHT befoie last I had a singular dream. I seemed to be sitting on a door- 
step (in no particular city perhaps), ruminating, and the time of night 
appeared to be about twelve or one o'clock. The weather was balmy and 
deliciuus. There was no human sound in the air, not even a footstep. There was 
no sound of any kind to emphasize the dead stillness, except the occasional hollow 
barking of a dog in the distance and the. fainter answer of a further dog. Presently 
up the street I heard a bony clack-clacking, and guessed it was the castanets of a 
serenading party. In a minute more a tall skeleton, hooded, and half-clad in a 

192 



A CURIOUS DREAM. 193 



tattered and mouldy shroud, whose shreds were flapping about the ribby lattice- 
work of its person swung by me with a stately stride, and disappeared in the grey 
gloom of the starlight. It had a broken and worm-eaten coffin on its shoulder and 
a bundle of something in its hand. I knew what the clack-clacking was then ; it 
was this party's joints working together, and his elbows knot king against his sides 
as he walked. I may say I was surprised. Before I could collect my thoughts and 
enter upon any speculations as to what this apparition might portend, I heard 
another one coming — for I recognized his clack-clack. He had two-thirds of a 
coffin on his shoulder, and some foot- and head-boards under his arm. I mightily 
wanted to peer under his hood and speak to him, but when he turned and smiled 
upon me with his cavernous sockets and his projecting grin as he went by, I thought 
I would not detain him. He was hardly gone when I heard the clacking again, and 
another one issued from the shadowy half-light. This one was bending under a heavy 
gravestone, and dragging a shabby coffin after him by a string. When he got to me 
he gave me a steady look for a moment or two, and then rounded to and backed up 
to me, saying : • 

"Ease this down for a fellow, will you?" 

leased the gravestone down till it rested on the ground, and in doing so noticed 
that it bore the name of "John Baxter Copmanhurst," with "May, 1839," as tne 
date of his death. Deceased sat wearily down by me, and wiped his os frontis 
with his major maxillary — chiefly from former habit I judged, for I could not see 
that he brought away any perspiration. 

" It is too bad, too bad," said he, drawing the remnant of the shroud about him 
and leaning his jaw pensively on his hand. Then he put his left foot up on his 
knee and fell to scratching his ankle bone absently with a rusty nail which he got 
out of his coffin. 

"What is too bad, friend?" 

" Oh, everything, everything. I almost wish I never had died." 

"You surprise me. Why do you say this? Has anything gone wrong? What 
is the matter?" 

" Matter ! Look at this shroud — rags. Look at this gravestone, all battered up. 
Look at that disgraceful old coffin. All a man's property going to ruin and destruc- 
tion before his eyes, and ask him if anything is wrong? Fire and brimstone!" 
J 3 



194 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

. _^ 

" Calm yourself, calm yourself," I said. " It is too bad — it is certainly too bad, 
but then I had not supposed that you would much mind such matters, situated as 
you are." 

" Well, my dear sir, I do mind them. My pride is hurt, and my comfort is 
impaired — destroyed, I might say. I will state my case — I will put it to you in 
such a way that you can comprehend it, if you will let me," said the poor skeleton, 
tilting the hood of his shroud back, as if he were clearing for action, and thus 
unconsciously giving himself a jaunty and festive air very much at variance with 
the grave character of his position in life — so to speak — and in prominent contrast 
with his distressful mood. 

"Proceed," said I. 

" I reside in the shameful old graveyard a block or two above you here, in this 
street — there, now, I just expected that cartilage would let go ! — third rib from the 
bottom, friend, hitch the end of it to my spine with a string, if you have got such a 
thing about you, though a bit of silver wire is a deal pleasanter, and more durable 
and becoming, if one keeps it polished — to think of shredding out and going to 
pieces in this way, just on account of the indifference and neglect of one's poster- 
ity! " — and the poor ghost grated his teeth in a way that give me a wrench and a 
shiver — for the effect is mightily increased by the absence of muffling flesh and 
cuticle. " I reside in that old graveyard, and have for these thirty years; and I 
tell you things are changed since I first laid this old tired frame there, and turned 
over, and stretched out for a long sleep, with a delicious sense upon me of being 
done with bother, and grief, and anxiety, and doubt, and fear, for ever and ever, and 
listening with comfortable and increasing satisfaction to the sexton's work, from the 
startling clatter of his first spadeful on mv coffin till it dulled away to the faint 
patting that shaped the roof of my new home — delicious! My! I wish you could 
try it to-night ! " and out of my reverie deceased fetched me with a rattling slap 
with a bony hand. 

"Yes, sir, thirty years ago I laid me down there, and was happy. For it was out 
in the country, then — out in the breezy, flowery, grand old woods, and the lazy 
winds gossiped with the leaves, and the squirrels capered over us and around us, 
and the creeping things visited us, and the birds filled the tranquil solitude with 



A CURIOUS BREAM. 



195 



music. Ah, it was worth ten years of a man's life to be dead then ! Everything 
was pleasant. I was in a good neighborhood, for all the dead people that lived near 
me belonged to the best families in the city. Our posterity appeared to think the 
World of us. They kept our graves in the very best condition ; the fences were 
always in faultless repair, head-boards were kept painted or whitewashed, and were 
replaced with new ones as soon as they began to look rusty or decayed ; monuments 
were kept upright, railings intact and bright, the rosebushes and shrubbery trimmed, 
trained, and free from blemish, the walks clean and smooth and gravelled. But 
that day is gone by. Our descendants have forgotten us. My grandson lives in a 
stately house built with money made by these old hands of mine, and I sleep in a 
neglected grave with invading vermin that gnaw my shroud to build them nests 




withal ! I and friends that lie with me founded and secured the prosperity of this 
fine city, and the stately bantling of our loves leaves us to rot in a dilapidated 
cemetery which neighbors curse and strangers scoff at. See the difference between 
the old time and this — for instance: Our graves are all caved in, now; our head- 
boards have rotted away and tumbled down; our railings reel this way and that 
with one foot in the air, after a fashion of unseemly levity ; our monuments lean 
wearily, and our gravestones bow their heads discouraged; there be no adornments 
any more — no roses, nor shrubs, nor gravelled walks, nor anything that is a comfort 
to the eye; and even the paintless old board fence that did make a show of holding 



196 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

us sacred from companionship with beasts and the defilement of heedless feet, has 
tottered till it overhangs the street, and only advertises the presence of our dismal 
resting-place and invites yet more derision to it. And now we cannot hide our 
poverty and tatters in the friendly woods, for the city has stretched its withering 
arms abroad and taken us in, and all that remains of the cheer of our old home is 
the cluster of lugubrious forest trees that stand, bored and weary of a city life, with 
their feet in our coffins, looking into the hazy distance and wishing they were there. 
I tell you it is disgraceful ! 

"You begin to comprehend — you begin to see how it is. While our descendants 
are living sumptuously on our money, right around us in the city, we have to fight 
hard to keep skull and bones together. Bless you, there isn't a grave in our 
cemetery that doesn't leak — not one. Every time it rains in the night we have to 
climb out and roost in the trees — and sometimes we are wakened suddenly by the 
chilly water trickling down the back of our necks. Then I tell you there is a 
general heaving up of old graves and kicking over of old monuments, and scamp- 
ering of old skeletons for the trees ! Bless me, if you had gone along there some 
such nights after twelve you might have seen as many as fifteen of us roosting on 
one limb, with our joints rattling drearily and the wind wheezing through our ribs ! 
Many a time we have perched there for three or four dreary hours, and then come 
down, stiff and chilled through and drowsy, and borrowed each other's skulls to 
bale out our graves with — if you will glance up in my mouth, now as I tilt my head 
back, you can see that my head-piece is half full of old dry sediment — how top- 
heavy and stupid it makes me sometimes ! Yes, sir, many a time if you had 
happened to come along just before the dawn you'd have caught us baling out the 
graves and hanging our shrouds on the fence to dry. Why, I had an elegant shroud 
stolen from there one morning — think a party by the name of Smith took it, that 
resides in a plebeian graveyard over yonder — I think so because the first time I ever 
saw him he hadn't anything on but a check-shirt, and the last time I saw him, 
which was at a social gathering in the new cemetery, he was the best dressed corpse 
in the company — and it is a significant fact that he left when he saw me; and 
presently an old woman from here missed her coffin — she generally took it with her 
when she went anywhere, because she was liable to take cold and bring on the 



A CURIOUS DREAM. 



197 



spasmodic rheumatism that originally killed her if she exposed herself to the night 
air much. She was named Hotchkiss — Anna Matilda Hotchkiss — you might know 
her? She has two upper front teeth, is tall, but a good deal inclined to stoop, one 
rib on the left side gone, has one shred of rusty hair hanging from the left side of 
her head, and one little tuft just above and a little forward of her right ear, has 
her under jaw wired on one side where it had worked loose, small bone of left 



forearm gone — lost 
kind of swagger 
'gallus' way of going 

bo and her nostrils 
been pretty free and' 
damaged and bat- 
looks like a queens- 
■ — maybe you have 

"God forbid ! " 
ejaculated, for 
looking for that 
and it caught me a 
But I hastened to 
my rudeness, and 
meant I had not 
I would not delib- 
courteously of a 

You were saying that you were rob- 

bed-and it was a shame, too-but it appears by what is left of the shroud you 
have on that it was a costly one in its day. How did 

A most ghastly expression began to develop among the decayed features and 
shrivelled integuments of my guest's face, and I was beginning to grow uneasy and 
distressed, when he told me he was only working up a deep, sly smile, with a wink 
in it, to suggest that about the time he acquired his present garment a ghost in a 
neighboring cemetery missed one. This reassured me, but I begged him to confine 
himself to speech thenceforth, because his facial expression was uncertain. Even 




in a fight — has a 
in her gait and a 
with her arms akim- 
i n the a i r — h a s 
easy, and is all 
tered u p till she 
ware crate in ruins 
met her ? " 
I involuntarily 
somehow I was not 
form o f question, 
little off my guard, 
make amends for 
say, "I simply 
had the honor — for 
erately speak dis- 
friend of yours. 



198 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

with the most elaborate care it was liable to miss fire. Smiling should especially be 
avoided. What he might honestly consider a shining success was likely to strike 
me in a very different light. I said I liked to see a skeleton cheerful, even decor- 
ously playful, but I did not think smiling was a skeleton's best hold. 

"Yes, friend," said the poor skeleton, "the facts are just as I have given them to 
you. Two of these old graveyards — the one that I resided in and one further along 
— have been deliberately neglected by our descendants of to-day until there is no 
occupying them any longer. Aside from the osteological discomfort of it — and that 
is no light matter this rainy weather — the present state of things is ruinous to 
property. We have got to move or be content to see our effects wasted away and 
utterly destroyed. Now, you will hardly believe it, but it is true, nevertheless, 
that there isn't a single coffin in good repair among all my acquaintance — now that 
is an absolute fact. I do not refer to low people who come in a pine box mounted 
on an express wagon, but I am talking about your high-toned, silver mounted 
burial-case, your monumental sort, that travel under black plumes at the head of a 
procession and have choice of cemetery lots — I mean folks like the Jarvises, and 
the Bledsoes and Burlings, and such. They are all about ruined. The most 
substantial people in our set, they were. And now look at them — utterly used up 
and poverty-stricken. One of the Bledsoes actually traded his monument to a late 
bar-keeper for some fresh shavings to put under his head. I tell you it speaks 
volumes, for there is nothing a corpse takes so much pride in as his monument. He 
loves to read the inscription. He comes after awhile to believe what it says him- 
self, and then you may see hirn sitting on the fence night after night enjoying it. 
Epitaphs are cheap, and they do a poor chap a world of good after he is dead, 
especially if he had hard luck while he was alive. I wish they were used more. 
Now, I don't complain, but confidentially I do think it was a little shabby in my 
descendants to give me nothing but this old slab of a gravestone — and all the more 
that there isn't a compliment on it. It used to have 

* GONE TO HIS JUST REWARD* 

on it, and I was proud when I first saw it, but by-and-by I noticed that whenever 
an old friend of mine came along he would hook his chin on the railing and pull a 



A C URIO US DREA M. 1 9 9 



long face and read along down till he came to that, and then he would chuckle to 
himself and walk off, looking satisfied and comfortable. So I scratched it off to 
get rid of those fools. But a dead man always takes a deal of pride in his monu- 
ment. Yonder goes half-a-dozen of the Jarvises, now, with the family monument 
along. And Smithers and some hired spectres went by with his a while ago. 
Hello, Higgins, good-bye, old friend! That's Meredith Higgins — died in '44 — 
belongs to our set in the cemetery — fine old family — great-grandmother was an 
Injun — I am on the most familiar terms with him — he didn't hear me was the reason 
he didn't answer me. And I am sorry, too, because I would have liked to introduce 
you. You would admire him. He is the most disjointed, sway-backed, and gen- 
erally distorted old skeleton you ever saw, but he is full of fun. When he laughs 
it sounds like rasping two stones together, and he always starts it off with a cheery 
screech like raking a nail across a window-pane. Hey, Jones ! That is old 
Columbus Jones — shroud cost four hundred dollars — entire trousseau, including 
monument, twenty-seven hundred. This was in the Spring of '26. It was enor- 
mous style for those days. Dead people came all the way from the Alleghanies to 
see his things — the party that occupied the grave next to mine remembers it well. 
Now do you see that individual going along with a piece of a head-board under 
his arm, one leg-bone below his knee gone, and not a thing in the world on ? 
That is Barstow Dalhousie, and next to Columbus Jones he was the most sump- 
tuously outfitted person that ever entered our cemetery. We are all leaving. We 
cannot tolerate the treatment we are receiving at the hands of our descendants. 
They open new cemeteries, but they leave us to our ignominy. They mend the 
streets, but they never mend anything that is about us or belongs to us. Look at 
that coffin of mine — yet I tell you in its day it was a piece of furniture that would 
have attracted attention in any drawing-room in this city. You may have it if you 
want it — I can't afford to repair it. Put a new bottom in her, and part of a new 
top, and a bit of fresh lining along the left side, and you'll find her about as com- 
fortable as any receptacle of her species you ever tried. No thanks — no, don't 
mention it — you have been civil to me, and I would give you all the property I 
have got before I would seem ungrateful. Now this winding-sheet is a kind of a 
sweet thing in its way, if you would like to . No ? Well, just as you say, but 



200 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

I wished to be fair and liberal — there's nothing mean about me. Good-by, friend, 
I must be going. I may have a good way to go to-night — don't know. I only 
know one thing for certain, and that is, that I am on the emigrant trail, now, and 
I'll never sleep in that crazy old cemetery again. I will travel till I find respecta- 
ble quarters, if I have to hoof it to New Jersey. All the boys are going. It was 
decided in public conclave, last night, to emigrate, and by the time the sun rises 
there won't be a bone left in our old habitations. Such cemeteries may suit my 
surviving friends, but they do not suit the remains that have the honor to make 
these remarks. My opinion is the general opinion. If you doubt it, go and see 
how the departing ghosts upset things before they started. They were almost 
riotous in their demonstrations of distaste. Hello, here are some of the Bledsoes, 
and if you will give me a lift with this tombstone I guess I will join company and 
jog along with them — mighty respectable old family, the Bledsoes, and used to 
always come out in six-horse hearses, and all that sort of thing fifty years ago when 
I walked these streets in daylight. Good-by, friend." 

And with his gravestone on his shoulder he joined the grisly procession, dragging 
his damaged coffin after him, for notwithstanding he pressed it upon me so earnestly, 
I utterly refused his hospitality. I suppose that for as much as two hours these 
sad outcasts went clacking by, laden with their dismal effects, and all that time I 
sat pitying them. One or two of the youngest and least dilapidated among them 
inquired about midnight trains on the railways, but the rest seemed unacquainted 
with that mode of travel, and merely asked about common public roads to various 
towns and cities, some of which are not on the map now, and vanished from it and 
from the earth as much as thirty years ago, and some few of them never //^existed 
anywhere but on maps, and private ones in real estate agencies at that. And they 
asked about the condition of the cemeteries in these towns and cities, and about 
the reputation the citizens bore as to reverence for the dead. 

This whole matter interested me deeply, and likewise compelled my sympathy 
for these homeless ones. And it all seeming real, and I not knowing it was a 
dream, I mentioned to one shrouded wanderer an idea that had entered my head 
to publish an account of this curious and very sorrowful exodus, but said also that 
I could not describe it truthfully, and just as it occurred, without seeming to trifle 



A CURIOUS DREAM. 



20I 



with a grave subject and exhibit an irreverence for the dead that would shock and 
distress their surviving friends. But this bland and stately remnant of a former 
citizen leaned him far over my gate and whispered in my ear, and said : — 

" Do not let that disturb you. The community that can stand such graveyards 
as those we are emigrating from can stand anything a body can say about the neg- 
lected and forsaken dead that lie in them." 

At that very moment a cock crowed, and the weird procession vanished and left 
not a shred or a bone behind. I awoke, and found myself lying with my head out 
of the bed and " sagging " downwards considerably — a position favorable to dream- 
ing dreams with morals in them, maybe, but not poetry. 



Note. — The reader is assured that if the cemeteries in his town are kept in good order, this 
Dream is not levelled at his town at all, but is levelled particularly and venomously at the next 
town. 





REPEATED WORD FOR WORD AS I 
HEARD IT. 

IT was summer time, and twilight. 
We were sitting on the porch of 
the farm-house, on the summit 
of the hill, and "Aunt Rachel" was 
sitting respectfully below our level, 
on the steps, — for she was our ser- 
vant, and colored. She was of 
mighty frame and stature ; she was 
sixty years old, but her eye was un- 
dimmed and her strength unabated. 
She was a cheerful, hearty soul, and 
it was no more trouble for her to 
laugh than it is for a bird to sing. 
She was under fire, now, as usual 
when the day was done. That is to 
say, she was being chaffed without 
mercy, and was enjoying it. She 
would let off peal after peal of laugh- 
ter, and then sit with her face in her 
hands and shake with throes of en- 
joyment which she could no longer 

get breath enough to express. At such a moment as this a thought occurred 

to me, and I said : 

" Aunt Rachel, how is it that you've lived sixty years and never had any 

trouble ? " 

She stopped quaking. She paused, and there was a moment of silence. 

202 



A TRUE STORY. 203 



She turned her face over her shoulder toward me, and said, without even a 
smile in her voice: — 

" Misto C , is you in 'arnest ?" 

It surprised me a good deal ; and it sobered my manner and my speech, too. 
I said : — 

" Why, I thought — that is, I meant — why, you can't have had any trouble. 
I've never heard you sigh, and never seen your eye when there wasn't a laugh 
in it." 

She faced fairly around, now, and was full of earnestness. 

"Has I had any trouble? Misto C , I's gwyne to tell you, den I leave it 

to you. I was bawn down 'mongst de slaves ; I knows all 'bout slavery, 'case I 
ben one of 'em my own se'f. Well, sah, my ole man — dat's my husban' — he was 
lovin' an' kind to me, jist as kind as you is to yo' own wife. An' we had chil'en 
— seven chil'en — an' we loved dem chil'en jist de same as you loves yo' chil'en. 
Dey was black, but de Lord can't make no chil'en so black but what dey mother 
loves 'em an' wouldn't give 'em up, no, not for anything dat's in dis whole 
world. 

" Well sah, I was raised in ole Fo'ginny, but my mother she was raised in Mary- 
land ; an' my souls ! she was turrible when she'd git started ! My Ian ! but she'd 
make de fur fly! When she'd git into dem tantrums, she always had one word 
dat she said. She'd straighten herse'f up an' put her fists in her hips an' say, ' I 
want you to understan' dat I wa'nt bawn in the mash to be fool' by trash ! I's 
one o' de ole Blue Hen's Chickens, / is ! ' 'Ca'se, you see, dat's what folks dat's 
bawn in Maryland calls deyselves, an' dey's proud of it. Well, dat was her 
word. I don't ever forgit it, beca'se she said it so much, an' beca'se she said it 
one day when my little Henry tore his wris' awful, and most busted his head, 
right up at de top of his forehead, an' de niggers didn't fly aroun' fas' enough 
to 'tend to him. An' when dey talk' back at her, she up an' she says, ' Look-a- 
heah ! ' she says, ' I want you niggers to understan' dat I wa'nt bawn in de mash 
to be fool' by trash ! I's one o' de ole Blue Hen's Chickens, /is! ' an' den she 
clar' dat kitchen an' bandage' up de chile herse'f. So I says dat word, too, 
when I's riled. 



204 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

" Well, bymeby my ole mistis say she's broke, an' she' got to sell all the nig- 
gers on de place. An' when I heah dat dey gwyne to sell us all off at oction in 
Richmon', oh de good gracious! I know what dat mean!" 

Aunt Rachel had gradually risen, while she warmed to her subject, and now 
she towered above us, black against the stars. 

" Dey put chains on us an' put us on a stan' as high as dis po'ch, — twenty foot 
high, — an' all de people stood aroun', crowds an' crowds. An' dey'd come up 
dah an' look at us all roun', an' squeeze our arm, an' make us git up an' walk, 
an' den say, ' Dis one too ole,' or ' Dis one lame,' or * Dis one don't 'mount to 
much.' An' dey sole my ole man, an' took him away, an' dey begin to sell my 
chil'en an' take dem away, an' I begin to cry ; an' de man say, ' Shet up yo' dam 
blubberin',' an' hit me on de mouf wid his han'. An' when de las' one was gone 
but my little Henry, I grab' him clost up to my breas' so, an' I ris up an' says, 
4 You shan't take him away,' I says ; ' I'll kill de man dat tetches him ! ' I says. 
But my little Henry whisper an' say, 'I gwyne to run away, an' den I work an' 
buy yo' freedom.' Oh, bless de chile, he always so good ! But dey got him 
— dey got him, de men did ; but I took and tear de clo'es mos' off of 'era an' 
beat 'em over de head wid my chain ; an' dey give it to me> too, but I didn't 
mine dat. 

" Well, dah was my ole man gone, an' all my chil'en, all my seven chil'en — 
an' six of 'em I hain't set eyes on ag'in to dis day, an' dat's twenty-two year 
ago las' Easter. De man dat bought me b'long' in Newbern, an' he took me 
dah. Well, bymeby de years roll on an' de waw come. My marster he was a 
Confedrit colonel, an' I was his family's cook. So when de Unions took dat 
town, dey all run away an' lef me all by myse'f wid de other niggers in dat 
mons'us big house. So de big Union officers move in dah, an' dey ask me 
would I cook for dem. ' Lord bless you,' says I, ' dat's what Vsfor.' 

" Dey wa'nt no small-fry officers, mine you, dey was de biggest dey is j an' de 
way dey made dem sojers mosey roun' ! De Gen'l he tole me to boss dat kitchen ; 
an' he say, ' If anybody come meddlin' wid you, you jist make 'em walk chalk ; 
don't you be afeared,' he say; 'you's 'mong frens, now.' * 

" Well, I thinks to myse'f, if my little Henry ever got a chance to run away, 



A TRUE STORY. 205 



he'd make to de Norf, o' course. So one day I comes in dah whar de big officers 
was, in de parlor, an' I drops a kurtchy, so, an' I up an' tole 'em 'bout my Henry, 
dey a-listenin' to my troubles jist de same as if I was white folks; an' I says, 
" What I come for is beca'se if he got away and got up Norf whar you gem men 
comes from, you might 'a' seen him, maybe, an' could tell me so as I could fine 
him ag'in ; he was very little, an' he had a sk-yar on his lef wris', an' at de top 
of his forehead.' Den dey look mournful, an' de Gen'l say, ' How long sence 
you los' him?' an' I say, 'Thirteen year.' Den de Gen'l say, 'He wouldn't be 
little no mo', now — he's a man ! ' 

" I never thought o' dat befo' ! He was only dat little feller to me, yit. I 
never thought 'bout him growin' up an' bein' big. But I see it den. None o' 
de gemmen had run acrost him, so dey couldn't do nothin' for me. But all dat 
time, do' / didn't know it, my Henry was run off to de Norf, years an' years, an, 
he was a barber, too, an' worked for hisse'f. An' bymeby, when de waw come' 
he ups an' he says : ' I's done barberin',' he says, ' I's gwyne to fine my ole mammy, 
less'n she's dead.' So he sole out an' went to whar dey was recruitin', an' hired 
hisse'f out to de colonel for his servant ; an' den he went all froo de battles 
everywhah, huntin' for his ole mammy; yes indeedy, he'd hire to fust one officer 
an' den another, tell he'd ransacked de whole Souf ; but you see / didn't know 
nuffin 'bout dis. How was / gwyne to know it ? 

"Well, one night we had a big sojer ball; de sojers dah at Newbern was 
always havin' balls an' carryin' on. Dey had 'em in my kitchen, heaps o' times, 
'ca'se it was so big. Mine you, I was down on sich doin's ; beca'se my place 
was wid de officers, an' it rasp me to have dem common sojers cavortin' roun' 
my kitchen like dat. But I alway' stood aroun' an' kep' things straight, I did; 
an' sometimes dey'd git my dander up, an' den I'd make 'em clar dat kitchen, 
mine I tell you ! 

"Well, one night — it was a Friday night — dey comes a whole plattoon f'm a 
nigger ridgment dat was on guard at de house, — de house was head-quarters, 
you know, — an' den I was jist a-£/7/V / Mad? I was jist a-ooomin , f I swelled 
aroun', an' swelled aroun'; I jist was a-itchin' for 'em to do somefin for to start 
me. An 1 dey was a-waltzin' an' a-dancin' ! my / but dey was havin' a time ! an' 



206 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



I jist a-swellin' an' a-swellin' up! Pooty soon, 'long comes rich a spruce young- 
nigger a-sailin' down de room wid a yaller wench roun' de wais' ; an' roun' an' 
roun' an' roun' dey went, enough to make a body drunk to look at 'em ; an* 
when dey got abreas' o' me, dey went to kin' o' balancin' aroun' fust on one leg 
an' den on t'other, an' smilin' at my big red turban, an' makin' fun, an' I ups 
an' says ' Git along wid you ! — rubbage ! ' De young man's face kin' o' changed, 
all of a sudden, for 'bout a second, but den he went to smilin' ag'in, same as he 



was befo'. Well, 
comes some nig- 
music and b'long' 
never could git 
tin' on airs. An' 
dey put on d a t 
'em ! Dey laughed, 
wuss. De res' o' 
laughin', an' den 
I was hot ! My 
blazin' ! I j i s t 
self up, so, — -jist as 
de ceilin', mos', — 
into my hips, an' I 
heah ! ' I says, * I 
to understan' dat 




'bout dis time, in 
gers dat played 
to de ban', an' dey 
along widout put- 
de very fust air 
night, I lit into 
an' dat made me 
de niggers got to 
my soul alive but 
eye was jist a - 
straightened my- 
I is now, plum to 
an' I digs my fists 
says, 'Look-a- 
want you niggers 
I wa'nt bawn in 



de mash to be fool' by trash ! I's one o' de ole Blue Hen's Chickens, / is! ' an' 
den I see dat young man stan' a-starin' an' stiff, lookin' kin' o' up at de ceilin' 
like he fo'got somefin, an' couldn't 'member it no mo'. Well, I jist march' on 
dem niggers, — so, lookin' like a gen'l, — an' dey jist cave' away befo' me an' out 
at de do'. An' as dis young man was a-goin' out, I heah him say to another 
nigger, * Jim,' he says, 'you go 'long an' tell de cap'n I be on han' 'bout eight 
o'clock in de mawnin'; dey's somefin on my mine,' he says; 'I don't sleep no 
mo' dis night. You go 'long, he says, 'an' leave me by my own se'f.' 

"Dis was 'bout one o'clock in de mawnin'. Well, 'bout seven, I was up an* 



A TRUE STORY. 



207 



on han', gittin' de officers' breakfast. I was a-stoopin' down by de stove, — jist 
so, same as if yo' foot was de stove, — an' I'd opened de stove do' wid my right 
han', — so, pushin' it back, jist as I pushes yo' foot, — an' I'd jist got de pan o' 
hot biscuits in my han' an' was 'bout to raise up, when I see a black face come 
aroun' under mine, an' de eyes a-lookin' up into mine, jist as I's a-lookin* up 
clost under yo' face now: an' I jist stopped right dah, an' never budged! jist 
gazed , an' gazed, so ; an* de pan begin to tremble, an* all of a sudden I knowedt 
De pan drop' on de flo' an' I grab his lef han' an' shove back his sleeve, — jist 
so, as I's doin* to you, — an' den I goes for his forehead an' push de hair back, 
so, an' ' Boy ! ' I says, ' if you an't my Henry, what is you doin' wid dis welt on 
yo' wris' an' dat sk-yar on yo' forehead ? De Lord God ob heaven be praise', 
I got my own ag'in ! ' 

" Oh, no, Misto C , / hain't had no trouble. An' no Joy I " 





THE SI/VMESE TWINS. 



I DO not wish to write of the personal habits of these strange creatures solely, 
but also of certain curious details of various kinds concerning them, which 
belonging only to their private life, have never crept into print. Knowing 
the Twins intimately, I feel that I am peculiarly well qualified for the task I 
have taken upon myself. 

The Siamese Twins are naturally tender and affectionate in disposition, and 
have clung to each other with singular fidelity throughout a long and eventful 
life. Even as children they were inseparable companions; and it was noticed 

. 208 



THE SIAMESE TWINS. 209 



that they always seemed to prefer each other's society to that of any other per- 
sons. They nearly always played together; and, so accustomed was their 
mother to this peculiarity, that, whenever both of them chanced to be lost, she 
usually only hunted for one of them — satisfied that when she found that one she 
would find his brother somewhere in the immediate neighborhood. And yet 
these creatures w T ere ignorant and unlettered — barbarians themselves and the 
offspring of barbarians, who knew not the light of philosophy and science. 
What a withering rebuke is this to our boasted civilization, with its quarrelings, 
its wranglings, and its separations of brothers! 

As men, the Twins have not always lived in perfect accord ; but still there 
has always been a bond between them which made them unwilling to go away 
from each other and dwell apart. They have even occupied the same house, as a 
general thing, and it is believed that they have never failed to even sleep together on 
any night since they were born. How surely do the habits of a lifetime become 
second nature to us! The Twins always go to bed at the same time ; but Chang 
usually gets up about an hour before his brother. By an understanding 
between themselves, Chang does all the in-door work and Eng runs all the 
errands. This is because Eng likes to go out; Chang's habits are sedentary. 
However, Chang always goes along. Eng is a Baptist, but Chang is a Roman 
Catholic; still, to please his brother, Chang consented to be baptized at the same 
time that Eng was, on condition that it should not "count." During the War 
they were strong partizans, and both fought gallantly all through the great strug- 
gle— Eng on the Union side and Chang on the Confederate. They took each 
other prisoners at Seven Oaks, but the proofs of capture were so evenly balanced 
in favor of each, that a general army court had to be assembled to determine 
which one was properly the captor, and which the captive. The jury was 
unable to agree for a long time; but the vexed question was finally decided by 
agreeing to consider them both prisoners, and then exchanging them. At one 
time Chang was convicted of disobedience of orders, and sentenced to ten days 
in the guard-house, but Eng, in spite of all arguments, felt obliged to share his 
imprisonment, notwithstanding he himself was entirely innocent ; and so, to save 
the blameless brother from suffering, they had to discharge both from custody— 

the just reward of faithfulness. 
id 



210 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

Upon one occasion the brothers fell out about something, and Chang knocked 
Eng down, and then tripped and fell on him, whereupon both clinched and 
began to beat and gouge each other without mercy. The bystanders interferred, 
and tried to separate them, but they could not do it, and so allowed them to 
fight it out. In the end both were disabled, and were carried to the hospital on 
one and the same shutter. 

Their ancient habit of going always together had its drawbacks when they 
reached man's estate, and entered upon the luxury of courting. Both fell in 
love with the same girl. Each tried to steal clandestine interviews with her, 
but at the critical moment the other would always turn up. By and by Eng 
saw, with distraction, that Chang had won the girl's affections; and, from that 
day forth, he had to bear with the agony of being a witness to all their dainty 
billing and cooing. But with a magnanimity that did him infinite credit, he 
succumbed to his fate, and gave countenance and encouragement to a state of 
things that bade fair to sunder his generous heart-strings. He sat from seven 
every evening until two in the morning, listening to the fond foolishness of the 
two lovers, and to the concussion of hundreds of squandered kisses — for the 
privilege of sharing only one of which he would have given his right hand. 
But he sat patiently, and waited, and gaped, and yawned, and stretched, and 
longed for two o'clock to come. And he took long walks with the lovers on 
moonlight evenings — sometimes traversing ten miles, notwithstanding he was 
usually suffering from rheumatism. He is an inveterate smoker; but he could 
not smoke on these occasions, because the young lady was painfully sensitive to the 
smell of tobacco. Eng cordially wanted them married, and done with it; but 
although Chang often asked the momentous question, the young lady could not 
gather sufficient courage to answer it while Eng was by. However, on one 
occasion, after having walked some sixteen miles, and sat up till nearly daylight, 
Eng dropped asleep, from sheer exhaustion, and then the question was asked 
and answered. The lovers were married. All acquainted with the circumstance 
applauded the noble brother-in-law. His unwavering faithfulness w T as the theme 
of every tongue. He had stayed by them all through their long and arduous 
courtship ; and when at last they were married, he lifted his hands above 



THE SIAMESE TWINS. 211 



their heads, and said with impressive unction, " Bless ye, my children I will 
never desert ye ! " and he kept his word. Fidelity like this is all too rare in this 
cold world. 

By and by Eng fell in love with his sister-in-law's sister, and married her, and 
since that day they have all lived together, night and day, in an exceeding 
sociability which is touching and beautiful to behold, and is a scathing rebuke 
to our boasted civilization. 

The sympathy existing between these two brothers is so close and so refined 
that the feelings, the impulses, the emotions of the one are instantly experienced 
by the other. When one is sick, the other is sick ; when one feels pain, the 
other feels it ; when one is angered, the other's temper takes fire. We have 
already seen with what happy facility they both fell in love with the same girl. 
Now, Chang is bitterly opposed to all forms of intemperance, on principle ; but 
Eng is the reverse — for, while these men's feelings and emotion are so closely 
wedded, their reasoning faculties are unfettered ; their thoughts are free. Chang 
belongs to the Good Templars, and is a hard working, enthusiastic supporter of all 
temperance reforms. But, to his bitter distress, every now and then Eng gets drunk, 
and, of course, that makes Chang drunk too. This unfortunate thing has been a 
great sorrow to Chang, for it almost destroys his usefulness in his favorite field of 
effort. As sure as he is to head a great temperance procession Eng ranges up 
alongside of him, prompt to the minute, and drunk as a lord ; but yet no more 
dismally and hopelessly drunk than his brother, who has not tasted a drop. 
And so the two begin to hoot and yell, and throw mud and bricks at the Good 
Templars; and of course they break up the procession. It would be manifestly 
wrong to punish Chang for what Eng does, and, therefore, the Good Templars 
accept the untoward situation, and suffer in silence and sorrow. They have 
officially and deliberately examined into the matter, and find Chang blameless. 
They have taken the two brothers and filled Chang full of warm water and 
sugar and Eng full of whisky, and in twenty-five minutes it was not possible to 
tell which was the drunkest. Both were as drunk as loons — and on hot whisky 
punches, by the smell of their breath. Yet all the while Chang's moral princi- 
ples were unsullied, his conscience clear; and so all just men were forced to 



212 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



confess that he was not morally, but only physically drunk. By every right 
and by every moral evidence the man was strictly sober; and, therefore, it 
caused his friends all the more anguish to see him shake hands with the pump, 
and try to wind his watch with his night-key. 

There is a moral in these solemn warnings — or, at least, a warning in these 
solemn morals; one or the other. No matter, it is somehow. Let us heed it; 
let us profit by it. 

I could say more of an instructive nature about these interesting beings, but 
let what I have written suffice. 

Having forgotton to mention it sooner, I will remark in conclusion, that the 
ages of the Siamese Twins are respectively fifty-one and fifty-three years. 




A 



SPEECH AT THE SCOTTISH BANQUET IN LONDON. 

T the anniversary festival of the Scottish Corporation of London on 
Monday evening, in response to the toast of "The Ladies," Mark Twain 
replied. The following is his speech as reported in the London Observer:— 



" I am proud, indeed, of the distinction of being chosen to respond to this especial toast, to ' Th« 
Ladies,' or to women if you please, for that is the preferable term, perhaps ; it is certainly the older, 
and therefore the more entitled to reverence. (Laughter.) I have noticed that the Bible, with that 
plain, blunt honesty which is such a conspicuous characteristic of the Scriptures, is always particular 
to never refer to even the illustrious mother of all mankind herself as a 'lady,' but speaks of her 
as a woman. (Laughter.) It is odd, but you will find it is so. I am peculiarly proud of this honor, 
because I think that the toast to women is one which, by right and by every rule of gallantry, should 
take precedence of all others — of the army, of the navy, of even royalty itself — perhaps, though the 
latter is not necessary in this day and in this land, "or the reason that, tacitly, you do drink a broad 
general health to all good women when you drink th» health of the Queen of England and the 
Princess of Wales. (Loud cheers.) I have in mind a poem just now which is familiar to you all, 
familiar to everybody. And what an inspiration that was (and how instantly the present toast 
recalls the verses to all our minds) when the most noble, the most gracious, the purest, and sweetest 
of all poets says : — 

'"Woman! O woman! er 

Worn ' 

(Laughter.) However, you remember the lines ; and you remember how feelingly, how daintily, 
how almost imperceptibly the verses raise up before you, feature by feature, the ideal of a true and 
perfect woman ; and how, as you contemplate the finished marvel, your homage grows into worship 
of the intellect that could create so fair a thing out of mere breath, mere words. And you call to 
mind now, as I speak, how the poet, with stern fidelity to the history of all humanity, delivers 
this beautiful child of his heart and his brain over to the trials and the sorrows that must come 
to all, sooner or later, that abide in the earth, and how the pathetic story culminates in that apos- 
trophe — so wild, so regretful, so full of mournful retrospection. The lines run thus : — 

" ' Alas !— alas !— a— alas ! 
Alas ! alas !' 

— and so on. (Laughter.) I do not remember the rest ; but, taken altogether, it seems to me that 
poem is the noblest tribute to woman that human genius has ever brought forth — (laughter) — and I 
feel that if I were to talk hours I could not do my great theme completer or more graceful justice 
than I have now done in simply quoting that poet's matchless words. (Renewed laughter.) The 
phases of the womanly nature are infinite in their variety. Take any type of woman, and you shall 
find in it something to respect, something to admire, something to love. And you shall find the 
whole joining you heart and hand. Who was more patriotic than Joan of Arc ? Who was braver? 
Who has given us a grander instance of self-sacrificing devotion? Ah ! you remember, you remem- 
ber well, what a throb of pain, what a great tidal wave of grief swept over us all when Joan of Arc 
fell at Waterloo. (Much laughter.) Who does not sorrow for the loss of Sappho, the sweet singer 
of Israel? (Laughter.) Who among us does not miss the gentle ministrations, the softening influ- 
ences, the humble piety of Lucretia Borgia? (Laughter.) Who can join in the heartless libel that 

213 - 



214 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

says woman is extravagant in dress when he can look back and call to mind our simple and lowly 
mother Eve arrayed in her modification of the Highland costume. (Roars of laughter.) Sir, women 
have been soldiers, women have been painters, women have been poets. As long as language lives 
the name of Cleopatra will live. And, not because she conquered George III. — (laughter) — but 
because she wrote those divine lines — 

" ' Let dogs delight to bark and bite, 
For God hath made them so.' 

(More laughter.) The story of the world is adorned with the names of illustrious ones of our own 
sex — some of them sons of St. Andrew, too — Scott, Bruce, Burns, the warrior Wallace, Ben Nevis — 
(laughter) — the gifted Ben Lomond, and the great new Scotchman, Ben Disraeli.* (Great laughter.) 
Out of the great plains of history tower whole mountain ranges of sublime women — the Queen of 
Sheba, Josephine, Semiramis, Sairey Gamp ; the list is endless — (laughter) — but I will not call the 
mighty roll, the names rise up in your own memories at the mere suggestion, luminous with the 
glory of deeds that cannot die, hallowed by the loving worship of the good and the true of all epochs 
and all climes. (Cheers.) Suffice it for our pride and our honor that we in our day have added to it 
such names as those of Grace Darling and Florence Nightingale. (Cheers.) Woman is all that she 
should be — gentle, patient, long suffering, trustful, unselfish, full of generous impulses. It is her 
blessed mission to comfort the sorrowing, plead for the erring, encourage the faint of purpose, succor 
the distressed, uplift the fallen, befriend the friendless — in a word, afford the healing of her sympa- 
thies and a home in her heart for all the bruised and persecuted children of misfortune that knock 
at its hospitable door. (Cheers.) And when I say, God bless her, there is none among us who has 
known the ennobling affection of a wife, or the steadfast devotion of a mother but in his heart will 
say, Amen ! (Loud and prolonged cheering.) 



* Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, at that time Prime Minister of England, had ju?t been elected Lord Rector of Glasgow 
University, and had maue a speech which gave rise to a world of discussion. 




I TOOK a large room, far up Broad- 
way, in a huge old building whose 
upper stories had been wholly un- 
occupied for years, until I came. The 
place had long been given up to dust 
and cobwebs, to solitude and silence. 
I seemed groping among the tombs and 
invading the privacy of the dead, that 
first night I climbed up to my quarters. 
For the first time in my life a super- 
stitious dread came over me; and as I 
turned a dark angle of the stairway and an invisible cobweb swung its slazy woof 
in my face and clung there, I shuddered as one who had encountered a phantom. 

2^5 



216 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

I was glad enough when I reached my room and locked out the mould and the 
darkness. A cheery fire was burning in the grate, and I sat down before it with a 
comforting sense of relief. For two hours I sat there, thinking of bygone times ; 
recalling old scenes, and summoning half-forgotten faces out of the mists of the past ; 
listening, in fancy, to voices that long ago grew silent for all time, and to once 
familiar songs that nobody sings now. And as my reverie softened down to a 
sadder and sadder pathos, the shrieking of the winds outside softened to a wail, the 
angry beating of the rain against the panes diminished to a tranquil patter, and one 
by one the noises in the street subsided, until the hurrying footsteps of the last 
belated straggler died away in the distance and left no sound behind. 

The fire had burned low. A sense of loneliness crept over me. I arose and 
undressed, moving on tip-toe about the room, doing stealthily what I had to do, as 
if I were environed by sleeping enemies whose slumbers it would be fatal to break. 
I covered up in bed, and lay listening to the rain and wind and the faint creaking 
of distant shutters, till they lulled me to sleep. 

I slept profoundly, but how long I do not know. All at once I found myself 
awake, and filled with a shuddering expectancy. All was still. All but my own 
heart — I could hear it beat. Presently the bed clothes began to slip away slowly 
toward the foot of the bed, as if some one were pulling them! I could not stir; I 
could not speak. Still the blankets slipped deliberately away, till my breast was 
uncovered. Then with a great effort I seized them and drew them over my head. 
I waited, listened, waited. Once more that steady pull began, and once more I lay 
torpid a century of dragging seconds till my breast was naked again. At last I 
roused my energies and snatched the covers back to their place and held them with 
a strong grip. I waited. By and bye I felt a faint tug, and took a fresh grip. The 
tug strengthened to a steady strain — it grew stronger and stronger. My hold parted r 
and for the third time the blankets slid away. I groaned. An answering groan 
came from the foot of the bed ! Beaded drops of sweat stood upon my forehead. 
I was more dead than alive. Presently I heard a heavy footstep in my room — the 
step of an elephant, it seemed to me — it was not like anything human. But it was 
moving from me — there was relief in that. I heard it approach the door — pass out 
without moving bolt or lock — and wander away among the dismal corridors. 



A GHOST STORY. 217 



straining the floors and joists till they creaked again as it passed — and then silence 
reigned once more. 

When my excitement had calmed, I said to myself, " This is a dream — simply a 
hideous dream." And so I lay thinking it over until I convinced myself that it 
was a dream, and then a comforting laugh relaxed my lips and I was happy again. 
I got up and struck a light; and when I found that the locks and bolts were just as 
I had left them, another soothing laugh welled in my heart and rippled from my 

lips. I took my pipe and lit it, and was just sitting down before the fire, when 

down went the pipe out of my nerveless fingers, the blood forsook my cheeks, and 
my placid breathing was cut short with a gasp ! In the ashes on the hearth, side 
by side with my own bare footprint, was another, so vast that in comparison mine 
was but an infant's ! Then I had had a visitor, and the elephant tread was explained. 

I put out the light and returned to bed, palsied with fear. I lay a long time, 
peering into the darkness, and listening. Then I heard a grating noise overhead, 
like the dragging of a heavy body across the floor; then the throwing down of the 
body, and the shaking of my windows in response to the concussion. In distant 
parts of the building I heard the muffled slamming of doors. I heard, at intervals, 
stealthy footsteps creeping in and out among the corridors, and up and down the stairs. 
Sometimes these noises approached my door, hesitated, and went away again. I 
heard the clanking of chains faintly, in remote passages, and listened while the 
clanking grew nearer — while it wearily climbed the stairways, marking each move 
by the loose surplus of chain that fell with an accented rattle upon each succeeding 
step as the goblin that bore it advanced. I heard muttered sentences; half-uttered 
screams that seemed smothered violently; and the swish of invisible garments, the 
rush of invisible wings. Then I became conscious that my chamber was invaded — 
that I was not alone. I heard sighs and breathings about my bed, and mysterious 
whisperings. Three little spheres of soft phosphorescent light appeared on the 
ceiling directly over my head, clung and glowed there a moment, and then dropped 
—two of them upon my face and one upon the pillow. They spattered, liquidly, 
and felt warm. Intuition told me they had turned to gouts of blood as they fell — 
I needed no light to satisfy myself of that. Then I saw pallid faces, dimly 
luminous, and white uplifted hands, floating bodiless in the air, — floating a moment 



218 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



and then disappearing. The whispering ceased, and the voices and the sounds, 
and a solemn stillness followed. I waited, and listened. I felt that I must have 
light, or die. I was weak with fear. I slowly raised myself toward a sitting post- 
ure, and my face came in contact with a clammy hand ! All strength went from 
me, apparently, and I fell back like a stricken invalid. Then I heard the rustle of 
a garment — it seemed to pass to the door and go out. 

When everything was still once more, I crept out of bed, sick and feeble, and lit 
the gas with a hand that trembled as if it were aged with a hundred years. The 
light brought some little cheer to my spirits. I sat down and fell into a dreamy 
contemplation of that great footprint in the ashes. By and bye its outlines began 
to waver and grow dim. I glanced up and the broad gas flame was slowly wilting 
away. In the same moment I heard that elephantine tread again. I noted its 
approach, nearer and nearer, along the musty halls, and dimmer and dimmer the 
light waned. The tread reached my very door and paused — the light had dwindled 
to a sickly blue, and all things about me lay in a spectral twilight. The door did 
not open, and yet I felt a faint gust of air fan my cheek, and presently was conscious 
of a huge, cloudy presence before me. I watched it with fascinated eyes. A pale 
glow stole over the Thing; gradually its cloudy folds took shape — an arm appeared, 
then legs, then a body, and last a great sad face looked out of the vapor. Stripped 
of its filmy housings, naked, muscular and comely, the majestic Cardiff Giant 
loomed above me ! 

All my misery vanished — for a child might know that no harm could come with 
that benignant countenance. My cheerful spirits returned at once, and in sympa- 
thy with them the gas flamed up brightly again. Never a lonely outcast was so glad 
to welcome company as I was to greet the friendly giant. I said : 

"Why, is it nobody but you ? Do you know, I have been scared to death for the 
last two or three hours? I am most honestly glad to see you. I wish I had a 
chair .Here, here, don't try to sit down in that thing ! " 

But it was too late. He was in it before I could stop him, and down he went — I 
never saw a chair shivered so in my life. j 

" Stop, stop, you'll ruin ev " 

Too late again. There was another crash, and another chair was resolved into 
its original elements. 



A GHOST STORY. 



219 



" Confound it, haven't you got any judgment at all ? Do you want to ruin all the 
furniture on the place? Here, here, you petrified fool " 

But it was no use. Before I could arrest him he had sat down on the bed, and 
it was a melancholy ruin. 

" Now what sort of a way is that to do ? First you come lumbering about the 
place bringing a legion of vagabond goblins along with you to worry me to death, 
and then when I overlook an indelicacy of costume which would not be tolerated 
anywhere by cultivated people except in a respectable theatre, and not even there 



if the nudity were 
repay me by wreck- 
ture you can find 
And why will you ? 
self as much as you 
broken off the end 
umn, and littered 
chips off your hams 
like a marble-yard, 
ashamed of your- 
enough t o know 
" Well, I will not 
furniture. But 
I have not had a 
for a c e n tu ry." 
into his eyes, 
said, " I should not 




o f your sex, you 
ing all the furni- 
to sit down on. 
You damage your- 
do me. You have 
of your spinal col- 
up the floor with 
till the place looks 
You ought to be 
self — you are big 
better." 

break any more 
what am I to do ? 
chance to sit down 
And the tears came 
" Poor devil," I 
have been so harsh 



with you. And you are an orphan, too, no doubt. But sit down on the floor here 
—nothing else can stand your weight — and besides, we cannot be sociable with 
you away up there above me ; I want you down where I can perch on this high 
counting-house stool and gossip with you face to face." 

So he sat down on the floor, and lit a pipe which I gave him, threw one of my 
red blankets over his shoulders, inverted my sitz-bath on his head, helmet fashion, 
and made himself picturesque and comfortable. Then he crossed his ancles, while 



220 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

I renewed the fire, and exposed the flat, honey-combed bottoms of his prodigious 
feet to the grateful warmth. 

" What is the matter with the bottom of your feet and the back of your legs, that 
they are gouged up so ? " 

" Infernal chilblains — I caught them clear up to the back of my head, roosting 
out there under Newell's farm. But I love the place; I love it as one loves his 
old home. There is no peace for me like the peace I feel when I am there." 

We talked along for half an hour, and then I noticed that he looked tired, and 
spoke of it. 

" Tired ?" he said. " Well I should think so. And now I will tell you all about 
it, since you have treated me so well. I am the spirit of the Petrified Man that 
lies across the street there in the Museum. I am the ghost of the Cardiff Giant. 
I can have no rest, no peace, till they have given that poor body burial again. 
Now what was the most natural thing for me to do, to make men satisfy this wish? 
Terrify them into it ! — haunt the place where the body lay ! So I haunted the 
museum night after night. I even got other spirits to help me. But it did no 
good, for nobody ever came to the museum at midnight. Then it occurred to me 
to come over the way and haunt this place a little. I felt that if I ever got a hear- 
ing I must succeed, for I had the most efficient company that perdition could 
furnish. Night after night we have shivered around through these mildewed halls, 
dragging chains, groaning, whispering, tramping up and down stairs, till to tell you 
the truth I am almost worn out. But when I saw a light in your room to-night I 
roused my energies again and went at it with a deal of the old freshness. But I am 
tired out — entirely fagged out. Give me, I beseech you, give me some hope!" 

I lit off my perch in a burst of excitement, and exclaimed : 

" This transcends everything ! everything that ever did occur ! Why you poor 
blundering old fossil, you have had all your trouble for nothing — you have been 
haunting a plaster cast of yourself — the real Cardiff Giant is in Albany ! * Con- 
found it, don't you know your own remains ?" 



* A fact. The original fraud was ingeniously and fraudfully duplicated, and exhibited in New 
York as the " only genuine " Cardiff Giant, (to the unspeakable disgust of the owners of the real 
colossus,) at the very same time that the latter was drawing crowds at a museum in Albany. 



A GHOS T STOR V. 221 



I never saw such an eloquent look of shame, of pitiable humiliation, overspread 
a countenance before. 

The Petrified Man rose slowly to his feet, and said : 

" Honestly, is that true ?" 

" As true as I am sitting here." 

He took the pipe from his mouth and laid it on the mantel, then stood irreso- 
lute a moment, (unconsciously, from old habit, thrusting his hands where his 
pantaloons pockets should have been, and meditatively dropping his chin on his 
breast,) and finally said : 

II Well — I never felt so absurd before. The Petrified Man has sold every body 
else, and now the mean fraud has ended by selling its own ghost ! My son, if there 
is any charity left in your heart for a poor friendless phantom like me, don't let 
this get out. Think how you would feel if you had made such an ass of yourself." 

I heard his stately tramp die away, step by step down the stairs and out into 
the deserted street, and felt sorry that he was gone, poor fellow — and sorrier still 
that he had carried off my red blanket and my bath-tub. 




CHAPTER I. 
[Scene — An Artist 's Studio in Rome^\ 

OH, George, I do love you ! 
" Bless your dear heart, Mary, I know 
that — why is your father so obdurate ?" 
" George, he means well, but art is folly to 
him — he only understands groceries. He 
thinks you would starve me." 

" Confound his wisdom — it savors of in- 
spiration. Why am I not a money-making, 
bowelless grocer, instead of a divinely-gifted 
U sculptor with nothing to eat ? " 
" Do not despond, Georgy, dear— all his prejudices will fade away as soon as 
you shall have acquired fifty thousand dol ' 



222 



THE CAPITOLINE VENUS. 223 

"Fifty thousand demons! Child, I am in arrears for my board !" 

CHAPTER II. 
\Scene — A Dwelling in Rome] 

"My dear sir, it is useless to talk. I haven't anything against you, but I can't 
let my daughter marry a hash of love, art, and starvation — I believe you have 
nothing else to offer." 

" Sir, I am poor, I grant you. But is fame nothing ? The Hon. Bellamy Foodie, 
of Arkansas, says that my new statue of America is a clever piece of sculpture, and 
he is satisfied that my name will one day be famous." 

"Bosh! What does that Arkansas ass know about it? Fame's nothing — the 

market price of your marble scare-crow is the thing to look at. It took you six 

months to chisel it, and you can't sell it for a hundred dollars. No, sir! Show 

me fifty thousand dollars and you can have my daughter — otherwise she marries 

young Simper. You have just six months to raise the money in. Good morning, 

sir." 

"Alas! Woe is me!" 

CHAPTER III. 

[Scene — The Studio] 

"Oh, John, friend of my boyhood, I am the unhappiest of men." 

"You're a simpleton!" 

"I have nothing left to love but my poor statue of America — and see, even she 
has no sympathy for me in her cold marble countenance — so beautiful and so 
heartless !" 

"You're a dummy!" 

"Oh, John!" 

" Oh, fudge ! Didn't you say you had six months to raise the money in ?" 

" Don't deride my agony, John. If I had six centuries what good would it do ? 
How could it help a poor wretch without name, capital or friends ?" 

" Idiot ! Coward ! Baby ! Six months to raise the money in— and five will do !** 

"Are you insane?" 



224 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



" Six months — an abundance. Leave it to me. I'll raise it." 

" What do you mean, John ? How on earth can you raise such a monstrous sum 
for me ?" 

" Will you let that be my business, and not meddle ? Will you leave the thing 
in my hands? Will you swear to submit to whatever I do? Will you pledge me 
to find no fault with my actions?" 

" I am dizzy — bewildered — but I swear." 

John took up a hammer and deliberately smashed the nose of America! He 




^8^5- 



made another pass and two of her fingers fell to the floor — another, and part of an 
ear came away — another, and a row of toes was mangled and dismembered — 
another, and the left leg, from the knee down, lay a fragmentary ruin! 

John put on his hat and departed. 

George gazed speechless upon the battered and grotesque nightmare before him 
for the space of thirty seconds, and then wilted to the floor and went into con- 
vulsions. 

John returned presently with a carriage, got the broken-hearted artist and the 



THE CAPITOLINE VENUS. 225 



broken-legged statue aboard, and drove off, whistling low and tranquilly. He left 

the artist at his lodgings, and drove off and disappeared down the Via Quirinalis 

with the statue. 

CHAPTER IV. 

[Scene — The Studio.} 

"The six months will be up at two o'clock to-day ! Oh, agony ! My life is 
blighted. I would that I were dead. I had no supper yesterday. I have had no 
breakfast to-day. I dare not enter an eating-house. And hungry? — don't mention 
it! My bootmaker duns me to death — my tailor duns me — my landlord haunts 
me. I am miserable. I haven't seen John since that awful day. She smiles on 
me tenderly when we meet in the great thoroughfares, but her old flint of a father 
makes her look in the other direction in short order. Now who is knocking at 
that door? Who is come to persecute me ? That malignant villain the bootmaker, 
I'll warrant. Come in!" 

"Ah, happiness attend your highness — Heaven be propitious to your grace! I 
have brought my lord's new boots — ah, say nothing about the pay, there is no hurry, 
none in the world. Shall be proud if my noble lord will continue to honor me with 
his custom — ah, adieu!" 

" Brought the boots himself! Don't want his pay ! Takes his leave with a bow 
and a scrape fit to honor majesty withal ! Desires a continuance of my custom! 
Is the world coming to an end ? Of all the co7ne in!" 

" Pardon, signor, but I have brought your new suit of clothes for " 

" Come in ! /" 

" A thousand pardons for this intrusion, your worship ! But I have prepared 
the beautiful suite of rooms below for you — this wretched den is but ill suited 
to " 

"Come in! !!" 

"I have called to say that your credit at our bank, sometime since unfortunately 
interrupted, is entirely and most satisfactorily restored, and we shall be most happy 
if you will draw upon us for any " 

"Come in! !!!" 
i5 



226 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

" My noble boy, she is yours! She'll be here in a moment ! Take her — marry 

her — love her — be happy ! — God bless you both ! Hip, hip, hur " 

"COME IN!!!!!" 

" Oh, George, my own darling, we are saved !" 

*' Oh, Mary, my own darling, we are saved — but I'll swear I don't know why nor 

how!" 

CHAPTER V. 

\Scc11e — A Roman Cafc^\ 

One of a group of Amercan gentlemen reads and translates from the weekly 
edition of // Slangwhanger di Roma as follows : 

"Wonderful Discovery ! — Some six months ago Signor John Smitthe, an American gentleman 
now some years a resident of Rome, purchased for a trifle a small piece of ground in the Campagna, 
just beyond the tomb of the Scipio family, from the owner, a bankrupt relative of the Princes-; 
Borghese. Mr. Smitthe afterwards went to the Minister of the Public Records and had the piece 
of ground transferred to a poor American artist named George Arnold, explaining that he did it as 
payment and satisfaction for pecuniary damage accidentally done by him long since upon property 
belonging to Signor Arnold, and further observed that he would make additional satisfaction by 
improving the ground for Signor A., at his own charge and cost. Four weeks ago, while making 
some necessary excavations upon the property, Signor Smitthe unearthed the most remarkable 
ancient statue that has ever been added to the opulent art treasures of Rome. It was an exquisite 
figure of a woman, and though sadly stained by the soil and the mould of ages, no eye can look 
unmoved upon its ravishing beauty. The nose, the left leg from the knee down, an ear, and also 
the toes of the right foot and two fingers of one of the hands, were gone, but otherwise the noble 
figure was in a remarkable state of preservation. The government at once took military possession 
of the statue, and appointed a commission of art critics, antiquaries and cardinal princes of the 
church to assess its value and determine the remuneration that must go to the owner of the ground 
in which it was found. The whole affair was kept a profound secret until last night. In the mean- 
time the commission sat with closed doors, and deliberated. Last night they decided unanimously 
that the statue is a Venus, and the work of some unknown but sublimely gifted artist of the third 
century before Christ. They consider it the most faultless work of art the world has any knowledge 
of. 

" At midnight they held a final conference and decided that the Venus was worth the enormous 
sum of ten million francs! In accordance with Roman law and Roman usage, the government 
being half owner in all works of art found in the Campagna, the State has naught to do but pay 
five million francs to Mr. Arnold and take permanent possession of the beautiful statue. This 
morning the Venus will be removed to the Capitol, there to remain, and at noon the commission 
will wait upon Signor Arnold with His Holiness the Pope's order upon the Treasury for the princely 
sum of five million francs in gold." 

Chorus of Voices. — " Luck ! It's no name for it!" 

Another Voice. — " Gentlemen, I propose that we immediately form an American 
joint-stock company for the purchase of lands and excavations of statues, here, 
with proper connections in Wall Street to bull and bear the stock." 

^//.—"Agreed." 



THE CAPITOLINE VENUS. 



227 



CHAPTER VI. 

[Scene — The Roman Capitol Ten Years Later.] 

" Dearest Mary, this is the most celebrated statue in the world. This is the 
renowned ' Capitoline Venus' you've heard so much about. Here she is with her 
little blemishes ' restored ' (that is, patched) by the most noted Roman artists — 
and the mere fact that they did the humble patching of so noble a creation will 
make their names illustrious while the world stands. How strange it seems — this 




place ! The day before I last stood here, ten happy years ago, I wasn't a rich man 
—bless your soul, I hadn't a cent. And yet I had a good deal to do with making 
Rome mistress of this grandest work of ancient art the world contains." 

" The worshipped, the illustrious Capitoline Venus — and what a sum she is 
valued at ! Ten millions of francs !" 

" Yes — now she is." 



228 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

"And oh, Georgy, how divinely beautiful she is!" 

" Ah, yes — but nothing to what she was before that blessed John Smith broke 

her leg and battered her nose. Ingenious Smith ! — gifted Smith — noble Smith ! 

Author of all our bliss ! Hark ! Do you know what that wheeze means ? Mary, 

that cub has got the whooping cough. Will you never learn to take care of the 

children!" 

THE END. 

The Capitoline Venus is still in the Capitol at Rome, and is still the most charm- 
ing and most illustrious work of ancient art the world can boast of. But if ever it 
shall be your fortune to stand before it and go into the customary ecstacies over it, 
don't permit this true and secret history of its origin to mar your bliss — and when 
you read about a gigantic Petrified Man being dug up near Syr.- se, in the State 
of New York, or near any other place, keep your own counsel, — and if the Earnum 
that buried him there offers to sell to you at an enormous sum, don't you buy. Send 
him to the Pope!" 

Note. — The above sketch was written at the time the famous swindle of the "Petrified Giant" 
was the sensation of the day in the United States. 



SPEECH ON ACCIDENT INSURANCE. 

DELIVERED IN HARTFORD, AT A DINNER TO CORNELIUS WALFORD, OF LONDON. 

GENTLEMEN: I am glad indeed to assist in welcoming the distinguished 
guest of this occasion to a city whose fame as an insurance center has 
extended to all lands, and given us the name of being a quadruple band of 
brothers working sweetly hand in hand, — the Colt's arms company making the 
destruction of our race easy and convenient, our life insurance citizens paying for 
the victims when they pass away, Mr. Batterson perpetuating their memory with 
his stately monuments, and our fire insurance comrades taking care of their here- 
after. I am glad to assist in welcoming our guest — first, because he is an English- 
man, and I owe a heavy debt of hospitality to certain of his fellow-countrymen ; 
and secondly, because he is in sympathy with insurance and has been the means of 
making many other men cast their sympathies in the same direction. 

Certainly there is no nobler field for human effort than the insurance line of 
business — especially accident insurance. Ever since I have been a director in an 
accident insurance company I have felt that I am a better man. Life has seemed 
more precious. Accidents have assumed a kindlier aspect. Distressing special 
providences have lost half their horror. I look upon a cripple, now, with affection- 
tionate interest — as an advertisement. I do not seem to care for poetry any more. 
I do not care for politics — even agriculture does not excite me. But to me, now, 
there is a charm about a railway collision that is unspeakable. 

There is nothing more beneficent than accident insurance. I have seen an entire 
family lifted out of poverty and into affluence by the simple boon of a broken leg. 
I have had people come to me on crutches, with tears in their eyes, to bless this 
beneficent institution. In all my experience of life, I have seen nothing so seraphic 
as the look that comes into a freshly mutilated man's face when he feels in his vest 

229 



230 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

pocket with his remaining hand and finds his accident ticket all right. And I have 
seen nothing so sad as the look that came into another splintered customer's 
face, when he found he couldn't collect on a wooden leg. 

I will remark here, by way of advertisement, that that noble charity which we 
have named the Hartford Accident Insurance Company, * is an institution 
which is peculiarly to be depended upon. A man is bound to prosper who gives it 
his custom. No man can take out a policy in it and not get crippled before the 
year is out. Now there was one indigent man who had been disappointed so often 
with other companies that he had grown disheartenend, his appetite left him, he 
ceased to smile — said life was but a weariness. Three weeks ago I got him to 
insure with us, and now he is the brightest, happiest spirit in this land — has a good 
steady income and a stylish suit of new bandages every day, and travels around on 
a shutter. 

I will say, in conclusion, that my share of the welcome to our guest is none the 
less hearty because I talk so much nonsense, and I know that I can say the same 
for the rest of the speakers. 



* The speaker is a director of the company namtd. 




JOHN CHINAMAN IN NEW 
YORK. 

passed along by one of 
those monster American tea- 
stores in New York, I found 
a Chinaman sitting before it acting 
in the capacity of a sign. Everybody 
that passed by gave him a steady 
stare as long as their heads would 
twist over their shoulders without 
dislocating their necks, and a group 
had stopped to stare deliberately. 

Is it not a shame that we, who 
prate so much about civilization and 
humanity, are content to degrade 
a fellow-being to such an office as 
this ? Is it not time for reflection when we find ourselves willing to see in such 
a being, matter for frivolous curiosity instead of regret and grave reflection? 

231 



232 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

Here was a poor creature whom hard fortune had exiled from his natural home 
beyond the seas, and whose troubles ought to have touched these idle strangers 
that thronged about him; but did it? Apparently not. Men calling themselves 
the superior race, the race of culture and of gentle blood, scanned his quaint 
Chinese hat, with peaked roof and ball on top, and his long queue dangling 
down his back ; his short silken blouse, curiously frogged and figured (and, like 
the rest of his raiment, rusty, dilapidated, and awkwardly put on) ; his blue 
cotton, tight-legged pants, tied close around the ankles ; and his clumsy blunt- 
toed shoes with thick cork soles ; and having so scanned him from head to foot, 
cracked some unseemly joke about his outlandish attire or his melancholy face, 
and passed on. In my heart I pitied the friendless Mongol. I wondered what 
was passing behind his sad face, and what distant scene his vacant eye was 
dreaming of. Were his thoughts with his heart, ten thousand miles away, 
beyond the billowy wastes of the Pacific ? among the rice-fields and the plumy, 
palms of China? under the shadows of remembered mountain-peaks, or in 
groves of bloomy shrubs and strange forest-trees unknown to climes like ours? 
And now and then, rippling among his visions and his dreams, did he hear 
familiar laughter and half-forgotten voices, and did he catch fitful glimpses of the 
friendly faces of a bygone time? A cruel fate it is, I said, that is befallen this 
bronzed wanderer. In order that the group of idlers might be touched at least 
by the words of the poor fellow, since the appeal of his pauper dress and his 
dreary exile was lost upon them, I touched him on the shoulder and said — 

"Cheer up — don't be down-hearted. It is not America that treats you in 
this way, it is merely one citizen, whose greed of gain has eaten the humanity 
out of his heart. America has a broader hospitality for the exiled and oppressed. 
America and Americans are always ready to help the unfortunate. Money 
shall be raised — you shall go back to China — you shall see your friends again. 
What wages do they pay you here ? " 

"Divil a cint but four dollars a week and find meself ; but it's aisy, barrin the 
troublesome furrin clothes that's so expinsive." 

The exile remains at his post. The New York tea-merchants who need 
picturesque signs are not likely to run out of Chinamen. 




HOW I EDITED AN AGRICULTURAL PAPER. 

I DID not take temporary editorship of an agricultural paper without misgivings. 
Neither would a landsman take command of a ship without misgivings. But I 
was in circumstances that made the salary an object. The regular editor of the 
paper was going off for a holiday, and I accepted the terms he offered, and took his 

place. 

The sensation of being at work again was luxurious, and I wrought all the week 
with unflagging pleasure. We went to press, and I waited a day with some 
solicitude to see whether my effort was going to attract any notice. As I left the 

233 



234 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

office, toward sundown, a group of men and boys at the foot of the stairs dispersed 
with one impulse, and gave me passage-way, and I heard one or two of them say: 
"That's him!" I was naturally pleased by this incident. The next morning I 
found a similar group at the foot of the stairs, and scattering couples and individuals 
standing here and there in the street, and over the way, watching me with interest. 
The group separated and fell back as I approached, and I heard a man say, "Look 
at his eye ! " I pretended not to observe the notice I was attracting, but secretly 
I was pleased with it, and was purposing to write an account of it to my aunt. I 
went up the short flight of stairs, and heard cheery voices and a ringing laugh as I 
drew near the door, which I opened, and caught a glimpse of two young rural- 
looking men, whose faces blanched and lengthened when they saw me, and then 
they both plunged through the window with a great crash. I was surprised. 

In about half an hour an old gentleman, with a flowing beard and a fine but 
rather austere face, entered, and sat down at my invitation. He seemed to have 
something on his mind. He took off his hat and set it on the floor, and got out of 
it a red silk handkerchief and a copy of our paper. 

He put the paper on his lap, and while he polished his spectacles with his 
handkerchief, he said, " Are you the new editor? " 

I said I was. 

" Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before ? " 

"No," I said; "this is my first attempt." 

"Very likely. Have you had any experience in agriculture practically? " 

"No; I believe I have not." 

" Some instinct told me so," said the old gentleman, putting on his spectacles, and 
looking over them at me with asperity, while he folded his paper into a convenient 
shape. " I wish to read you what must have made me have that instinct. It was 
this editorial. Listen, and see if it was you that wrote it : — 

'Turnips should never be pulled, it injures them. It is much better to send a boy up and let him 
shake the tree." 

"Now, what do you think of that? — for I really suppose you wrote it?" 
"Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I think it is sense. I have no doubt 
that every year millions and millions of bushels of turnips are spoiled in this 



HOW I EDITED AN AGRICUL TURAL PAPER. 235 



township alone by being pulled in a half-ripe condition, when, if they had sent a 

boy up to shake the tree" 

" Shake your grandmother ! Turnips don't grow on trees! " 
"Oh, they don't, don't they? Well, who said they did? The language" was 
intended to be figurative, wholly figurative. Anybody that knows anything will 
know that I meant that the boy should shake the vine." 

Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into small shreds, and stamped 
on them, and broke several things with his cane, and said I did not know as much 
as a cow; and then went out and banged the door after him, and, in short, acted 
in such a way that I fancied he was displeased about something. But not knowing 
what the trouble was, I could not be any help to him. 

Pretty soon after this a long cadaverous creature, with lanky locks hanging down 
to his shoulders, and a week's stubble bristling from the hills and valleys of his face, 
darted within the door, and halted, motionless, with finger on lip, and head and 
body bent in listening attitude. No sound was heard. Still he listened. No sound. 
Then he turned the key in the door, and came elaborately tiptoeing toward me till 
he was within long reaching distance of me, when he stopped, and after scanning 
my face with intense interest for a while, drew a folded copy of our paper from his 
bosom, and said — 

" There, you wrote that. Read it to me — quick? Relieve me. I suffer." 
I read as follows ; and as the sentences fell from my lips I could see the relief 
come, I could see the drawn muscles relax, and the anxiety go out of the face, and 
rest and peace steal over the features like the merciful moonlight over a desolate 
landscape : 

"The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in rearing it. It should not be imported 
earlier than June or later than September. In the winter it should be kept in a warm place, where 
it can hatch out its young. 

" It is evident that we are to have a backward season for grain. Therefore it will be well for the 
farmer to begin setting out his cornstalks and planting his buckwheat cakes in July instead of 
August. 

" Concerning the pumpkin. — This berry is a favorite with the natives of the interior of New 
England, who prefer it to the gooseberry for the making of fruit-cake, and who likewise give it 
the preference over the raspberry for feeding cows, as being more filling and fully as satisfying. 
The pumpkin is the only esculent of the orange family that will thrive in the North, except the 
gourd and one or two varieties of the squash. But the custom of planting it in the front yard with 
the shrubbery is fast going out of vogue, for it is now generally conceded that the pumpkin as a 
shade tree is a failure. 

" Now, as the warm weather approaches, and the ganders begin to spawn " 



236 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



The excited listener sprang toward 
me to shake hands, and said — 

" There, there — that will do. I 
know I am all right now, because 
you have read it just as I did, word 
for word. But, stranger, when I first 
read it this morning, I said to myself, 
I never, never believed it before, not- 
withstanding my friends kept me 
under watch so strict, but now I 
believe I a?n crazy; and with that I 
fetched a howl that you might have 
heard two miles, and started out to 
kill somebody — because, you know, 
I knew it would come to that sooner 
or later, and so I might as well begin. 
I read one of them paragraphs over 
again, so as to be certain, and then I 
burned my house down and started. 
I have crippled several people, and 
have got one fellow up a tree, where 
where I can get him if I want him. 
But I thought I would call in here 
as I passed along and make the 
thing perfectly certain ; and now it 
is certain, and I tell you it is lucky 
for the chap that is in the tree. I 
should have killed him, sure, as I 
went back. Good-bye, sir, good-bye ; 
you have taken a great load off my 
mind. My reason has stood the 
strain of one of your agricultural 
articles, and I know that nothing can ever unseat it now. Good-bye, sir. 




HOW I EDITED AN AGRICUL TURAL PAPER. 237 

I felt a little uncomfortable about the cripplings and arsons this person had been 
entertaining himself with, for I could not help feeling remotely accessory to them. 
But these thoughts were quickly banished, for the regular editor walked in ! [I 
thought to myself, Now if you had gone to Egypt as I recommended you to, I 
might have had a chance to get my hand in; but you wouldn't do it, and here you 
are. I sort of expected you.] 

The editor was looking sad and perplexed and dejected. 

He surveyed the wreck which that old rioter and these two young farmers had 
made, and then said, "This is a sad business — a very sad business. There is the 
mucilage bottle broken, and six panes of glass, and a spittoon and two candlesticks. 
But that is not the worst. The reputation of the paper is injured — and permanently, 
I fear. True, there never was such a call for the paper before, and it never sold 
such a iarge edition or soared to such celebrity; — but does one want to be famous 
for lunacy, and prosper upon the infirmities of his mind ? My friend, as I am an 
honest man, the street out here is full of people, and others are roosting on the 
fences, waiting to get a glimpse of you, because they think you are crazy. And 
well they might after reading your editorials. They are a disgrace to journalism. 
Why, wnat put it into your head that you could edit a paper of this nature ? You 
do not seem to know the first rudiments of agriculture. You speak of a furrow and 
a harrow as being the same thing; you talk of the moulting season for cows; and 
you recommend the domestication of the pole-cat on account of its playfulness and 
its excellence as a ratter ! Your remark that clams will lie quiet if music be played 
to them was superfluous — entirely superfluous. Nothing disturbs clams. Clams 
always lie quiet. Clams care nothing whatever about music. Ah, heavens and 
earth, friend I if you had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you 
could not have graduated with higher honor than you could to-day. I never saw 
anything like it. Your observation that the horse-chestnut as an article of 
commerce is steadily gaining in favor, is simply calculated to destroy this journal. 
I want you to throw up your situation and go. I want no more holiday — I could 
not enjoy it if I had it. Certainly not with you in my chair. I would always 
stand in dread of what you might be going to recommend next. It makes me lose 
all patience every time I think of your discussing oyster-beds under the head of 
" Landscape Gardening." I want you to go. Nothing on earth could persuade me 



238 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



to take another holiday. Oh! why didn't you tell me you didn't know anything 
about agriculture?" 

" Tell you, you cornstalk, you cabbage, you son of a cauliflower? It's the first 
time I ever heard such an unfeeling remark. I tell you I have been in the editorial 
business going on fourteen years, and it is the first time I ever heard of a man's 
having to know anything in order to edit a newspaper. You turnip! Who write 
the dramatic critiques for the second-rate papers? Why, a parcel of promoted 
shoemakers and apprentice apothecaries, who know just as much about good acting 
as I do about good farming and no more. Who review the books ? People who 
never wrote one. Who do up the heavy leaders on finance ? Parties who have had 
the largest opportunities for knowing nothing about it. W T ho criticise the Indian 
campaigns? Gentlemen who do not know a war-whoop from a wigwam, and who 
never have had to run a foot race with a tomahawk, or pluck arrows out of the several 
members of their families to build the evening camp-fire with. Who write the 
temperance appeals, and clamor about the flowing bowl? Folks who will never 
draw another sober breath till they do it in the grave. Who edit the agricultural 
papers, you — yam ? Men, as general thing, who fail in the poetry line, yellow- 
colored novel line, sensation-drama line, city-editor line, and finally fall back on 
agriculture as a temporary reprieve from the poorhouse. You try to tell me 
anything about the newspaper business ! Sir, I have been through it from Alpha 
to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger the noise he makes 
and the higher the salary he commands. Heaven knows if I had but been 
ignorant instead of cultivated, and impudent instead of diffident, I could have made 
a name for myself in this cold selfish world. I take my leave, sir. Since I have 
been treated as you have treated me, I am perfectly willing to go. But I have done 
my duty. I have fulfilled my contract as far as I was permitted to do it. I said I 
could make your paper of interest to all classes — and I have. I said I could run 
your circulation up to twenty thousand copies, and if I had had two more weeks I'd 
have done it. And I'd have given you the best class of readers that ever an 
agricultural paper had — not a farmer in it, nor a solitary individual who could tell 
a water-melon tree trom a peach-vine to save his life. You are the loser by this 
rupture, not me, Pie-plant. Adios." 

I then left. 




NOW, to show how really hard it 
is to foist a moral or a truth 
upon an unsuspecting public 
through a burlesque without entirely 
and absurdly missing one's mark, I 
will here set down two experiences of 
my own in this thing. In the fall of 
1862, in Nevada and California, the 
people got to running wild about ex- 
traordinary petrifications and other 
natural marvels. One could scarcely 
pick up a paper without finding in it 
one or two glorified discoveries of this 
kind. The mania was becoming a little ridiculous. I was a bran-new local editor 
in Virginia City, and I felt called upon to destroy this growing evil ; we all have 

2 39 __ 



240 



MARA' TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



our benignant fatherly moods at one time or another, I suppose. I chose to kill the 
petrifaction mania with a delicate, a very delicate satire. But maybe it was alto- 
gether too delicate, for nobody ever perceived the satire part of it at all. I put my 
scheme in the shape of the discovery of a remarkably petrified man. 

I had had a temporary falling out with Mr. , the new coroner and justice 

of the peace of Humboldt, and thought I might as well touch him up a little at the 
same time and make him ridiculous, and thus combine pleasure with business. So 
I told, in patient 



detail, all about 
petrified man at 
(exactly a hundred 
over a breakneck 

from where 

savants of the im- 
hood had been to 
notorious that 
living creature 
of there, except a 
dians, some crip- 
a n d four or five 
meat and too fee- 
how those savants 
petrified man to 




belief- compelling 
the finding of a 
Gravelly Ford 
and twenty miles, 
mountain trail, 
lived) ; how all the 
mediate neighbor- 
examine it (it was 
there was not a 
within fiity miles 
few starving In- 
pled grasshoppers, 
buzzards out of 
ble to get away) ; 
all pronounced the 
have been in a state 



of complete petrifaction for over ten generations; and then, with a seriousness that 

I ought to have been ashamed to assume, I stated that as soon as Mr. heard 

the news he summoned a jury, mounted his mule, and posted off, with noble rever- 
ence for official duty, on that awful five days' journey, through alkali, sage-brush, 
peril of body, and imminent starvation, to hold an inquest on this man that had 
been dead and turned to everlasting stone for more than three hundred years ! 
And then, my hand being "in," so to speak, I went on, with the same unflinching 
gravity, to state that the jury returned a verdict that deceased came to his death 
from protracted exposure. This only moved me to higher flights of imagination, 



THE PETRIFIED MAN. 241 



and I said that the jury, with that charity so characteristic of pioneers, then dug a 
grave, and were about to give the petrified man Christian burial, when they found 
that for ages a limestone sediment had been trickling down the face of the sione 
against which he was sitting, and this stuff had run under him and cemented him 
fast to the "bed-rock;" that the jury (they were all silver-miners) canvassed .the 
difficulty a moment, and then got out their powder and fuse, and proceeded to 

drill a hole under him, in order to blast him from his position, when Mr. , "with 

that delicacy so characteristic of him, forbade them, observing that it would be 
little less than sacrilege to do such a thing." 

From beginning to end the " Petrified Man " squib was a string of roaring 
absurdities, albeit they were told with an unfair pretence of truth that even imposed 
upon me to some extent, and I was in some danger of believing in my own fraud. 
But I really had no desire to deceive anybody, and. no expectation of doing it. I 
depended on the way the petrified man was sitting to explain to the public that he 
was a swindle. Yet I purposely mixed that up with other things, hoping to make 
it obscure — and I did. I would describe the position of one foot, and then say his 
right thumb was against the side of his nose ; then talk about his other foot, and 
presently come back and say the fingers of his right hand were spread apart ; then 
talk about the back of his head a little, and return and say the left thumb was 
hooked into the right little finger; then ramble off about something else, and by 
and by drift back again and remark that the fingers of the left hand were spread 
like those of the right. But I was too ingenious. I mixed it up rather too much; 
and so all that description of the attitude, as a key to the humbuggery of the 
article, was entirely lost, for nobody but me ever discovered and comprehended 
the peculiar and suggestive position of the petrified man's hands. 

As a satire on the petrifaction mania, or anything else, my Petrified Man was a 

disheartening failure ; for everybody received him in innocent good faith, and I 

was stunned to see the creature I had begotten to pull down the wonder-business 

with, and bring derision upon it, calmly exalted to the grand chief place in the list 

of the genuine marvels our Nevada had produced. I was so disappointed at the 

curious miscarriage of my scheme, that at first I was angry, and did not like to 

think about it ; but by and by, when the exchanges began to come in with the 
16 



«43 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



Petrified Man copied and guilelessly glorified, I began to feel a soothing secret satis- 
faction ; and as my gentleman's field of travels broadened, and by the exchanges I 
sa»/ that he steadily and implacably penetrated territory after territory, State after 
State, and land after land, till he swept the great globe and culminated in sublime 
and unimpeached legitimacy in the august London La?icet, my cup was full, and I 
said I was glad I had done it. I think that for about eleven months, as nearly as 

I can remember, Mr. 's daily mail-bag continued to be swollen by the addition 

of half a bushel of newspapers hailing from many climes with the Petrified Man in 
them, marked around with a prominent belt of ink. I sent them to him. I did it 
for spite, not for fun. He used to shovel them into his back yard and curse. And 
every day during all those months the miners, his constituents (for miners never 
quit joking a person when they get started), would call on him and ask if he could 
tell them where they could get hold of a paper with the Petrified Man in it. He 

could have accommodated a continent with them. I hated in those days, 

and these things pacified me and pleased me. I could not have gotten more real 
comfort out of him without killing him. 





THE other burlesque I have referred to was my fine 
satire upon the financial expedients of "cooking 
dividends," a thing which became shamefully fre- 
quent on the Pacific coast for a while. Once more, in my 
self-complacent simplicity, I felt that the time had arrived 
for me to rise up and be a reformer. I put this reformatory 
satire in the shape of a fearful " Massacre at Empire City." 
The San Francisco papers were making a great outcry 
about the iniquity cf the Daney Silver-Mining Company, 
whose directors had declared a "cooked " or false dividend, 
for the purpose of increasing the value of their stock, so 
that they could sell out at a comfortable figure, and then 
scramble from under the tumbling concern. And while abusing the Daney, 
those papers did not forget to urge the public to get rid of all their silver 

243 



tyj 



V> 7 



m 



P 



244 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

stocks and invest in sound and safe San Francisco stocks, such as the Spring 
Valley Water Company, etc. But right at this unfortunate juncture, behold 
the Spring Valley cooked a dividend too ! And so, under the insidious mask 
of an invented " bloody massacre," I stole upon the public unawares with my 
scathing satire upon the dividend-cooking system. In about half a column of 
imaginary human carnage I told how a citizen had murdered his wife and nine 
children, and then committed suicide. And I said slyly, at the bottom, that the 
sudden madness of which the this melancholy massacre was the result, had been 
brought about by his having allowed himself to be persuaded by the 
California papers to sell his sound and lucrative Nevada silver stocks, and buy 
into Spring Valley just in time to get cooked along with that company's fancy 
dividend, and sink every cent he had in the world. 

Ah, it was a deep, deep satire, and most ingeniously contrived. But I made 
the horrible details so carefully and conscientiously interesting that the public 
devoured them greedily, and whplly overlooked the following distinctly-stated 
facts, to wit : — The murderer was perfectly well known to every creature in the 
land as a bachelor, and consequently he could not murder his wife and nine 
children ; he murdered them " in his splendid dressed-stone mansion just in the 
edge of the great pine forest between Empire City and Dutch Nick's," when 
even the very pickled oysters that came on our tables knew that there was not 
a "dressed-stone mansion " in all Nevada Territory; also that, so far from there 
being a " great pine forest between Empire City and Dutch Nick's," there 
wasn't a solitary tree within fifteen miles of either place; and, finally, it was 
patent and notorious that Empire City and Dutch Nick's were one and the 
same place, and contained only six houses anyhow, and consequently there 
could be no forest between them ; and on top of all these absurdities I stated 
that this diabolical murderer, after inflicting a wound upon himself that the 
reader ought to have seen would kill an elephant in the twinkling of an eye, 
jumped on his horse and rote four miles, waving his wife's reeking scalp in the 
air, and thus performing entered Carson City with tremendous eclat, and dropped 
dead in front of the chief saloon, the envy and admiration of all beholders. 
Well, in all my life I never saw anything like the sensation that little satire 



M Y BLOOD Y MA SSA CRE. 



2 45 



created. It was the talk of the town, it was the talk of the Territory. Most of 
the citizens dropped gently into it at breakfast, and they never finished their 
meal. There was something about those minutely faithful details that was a 
sufficing substitute for food. Few people that were able to read took food that 
morning. Dan and I (Dan was my reportorial associate) took our seats on 
either side of our customary table in the " Eagle Restaurant," and, as I unfolded 
the shred they used to call a napkin in that establishment, I saw at the next 
table two stalwart innocents with that sort of vegetable dandruff sprinkled 



about their cloth- 
sign and evidence 
from the Truckee 
The one facing me 
paper folded to a 
and I knew, with- 
that that strip rep- 
umn that con- 
financial satire, 
was excitedly ^ 
that the heedless 
was skipping with 
order to get to the 
quickly as possi- 
missing the guide- 
up to warn h i m 




ing which was the 
that they were in 
with a load of hay. 
had the morning 
long narrow strip, 
out any telling, 
resented the col- 
tained my pleasant 
From the way he 
mumbling, I saw 
son of a hay-mow 
all his might, in 
bloody details as 
ble; and so he was 
boards I had set 
that the whole 



thing was a fraud. Presently his eyes spread wide open, just as his jaws swung 
asunder to take in a potato approaching it on a fork ; the potato halted, the 
face lit up redly, and the whole man was on fire with excitement. Then he 
broke into a disjointed checking off of the particulars — his potato cooling in 
mid-air meantime, and his mouth making a reach for it occasionally, but always 
bringing up suddenly against a new and still more direful performance of my 
hero. At last he looked his stunned and rigid comrade impressively in the face, 
And said, with an expression of concentrated awe — 



246 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

"Jim, he b'iled his baby, and he took the old 'oman's skelp. Cuss'd if/ want 
any breakfast ! " 

And he laid his lingering potato reverently down, and he and his friend 
departed from the restaurant empty but satisfied. 

He never got down to where the satire part of it began. Nobody ever did. 
They found the thrilling particulars sufficient. To drop in with a poor little 
moral at the fag-end of such a gorgeous massacre, was to follow the expiring 
sun with a candle, and hope to attract the world's attention to it. 

The idea that anybody could ever take my massacre for a genuine occurrence 
never once suggested itself to me, hedged about as it was by all those tell-tale 
absurdities and impossibilities concerning the "great pine forest," the'" dressed- 
stone mansion/' etc. But I found out then, and never have forgotton since, that 
we never read the dull explanatory surroundings of marvellously exciting things 
when we have no occasion to suppose that some irresponsible scribbler is try- 
ing to defraud us ; we skip all that, and hasten to revel in the blooa-curdling 
particulars and be happy. 



THE UNDERTAKER'S CHAT. 

"IV TOW, that corpse," said the undertaker, patting the folded hands of 
X. ^1 deceased approvingly, " was a brick — every way you took him he was 
a brick. He was so real accommodating, and so modest-like and 
simple in his last moments. Friends wanted metallic burial case — nothing else 
would do. / couldn't get it. There warn't going to be time — anybody could 
see that. 

" Corpse said never mind, shake him up some kind of a box he could stretch 
out in comfortable, he warn't particular 'bout the general style of it. Said he 
went more on room than style, any way in a last final container. 

" Friends wanted a silver door-plate on the coffin, signifying who he was and 
wher' he was from. Now you know a fellow couldn't roust out such a gaily 
thing as that in a little country town like this. What did corpse say? 

" Corpse said, whitewash his old canoe and dob his address and general des- 
tination onto it with a blacking brush and a stencil plate, 'long with a verse from 
some likely hymn or other, and p'int him for the tomb, and mark him C. O. D., 
and just let him flicker. He warn't distressed any more than you be — on the 
contrary just as ca'm and collected as a hearse-horse; said he judged that wher* 
he was going to a body would find it considerable better to attract attention by 
a picturesque moral character than a natty burial case with a swell door-plate 

on it. f 

r 

" Splendid man, he was. I'd druther do for a corpse like that 'n any I've 
tackled in seven year. There's some satisfaction in buryin' a man like that. 
You feel that what you're doing is appreciated. Lord bless you, so's he got 
planted before he sp'iled, he was perfectly satisfied ; said his relations meant 
well, perfectly well, but all them preparations was bound to delay the thing 

247 



£48 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

more or less, and he didn't wish to be kept layin' around. You never see such 
a clear head as what he had — and so ca'm and so cool. Just a hunk of brains — 
that is what he was. Perfectly awful. It was a ripping distance from one end 
of that man's head to t'other. Often and over again he's had brain fever a- 
raging in one place, and the rest of the pile didn't know anything about it — 
didn't affect it any more than an Injun insurrection in Arizona affects the 
Atlantic States. 

" Well, the relations they wanted a big funeral, but corpse said he was down on 
flummery — didn't want any procession — fill the hearse full of mourners, and get 
out a stern line and tow him behind. He was the most down on style of any 
remains I ever struck. A beautiful simple-minded creature — it was. what he 
was, you can depend on that. He was just set on having things the way he 
wanted them, and he took a solid comfort in laying his little plans. He had me 
measure him and take a whole raft of directions; then he had the minister stand 
up behind a long box with a table-cloth over it, to represent the coffin, and 
read his funeral sermon, saying ' Angcore, angcore ! ' at the good places, and 
making him scratch out every bit of brag about him, and all the hifalutin; and 
then he made them trot out the choir so's he could help them pick out the tunes 
for the occasion, and he got them to sing ' Pop Goes the Weasel/ because he'd 
always liked that tune when he was down-hearted, and solemn music made him 
sad ; and when they sung that with tears in their eyes (because they all loved 
him), and his relations grieving around, he just laid there as happy as a bug, 
and trying to beat time and showing all over how much he enjoyed it ; and 
presently he got worked up and excited, and tried to join in, for mind you he 
was pretty proud of his abilities in the singing line; but the first time he opened 
his mouth and was just going to spread himself his breath took a walk. 

" I never see a man snuffed out so sudden. Ah, it was a great loss — it was a 
powerful loss to this poor little one-horse town. Well, well, well, I hain't got 
time to be palavering along here — got to nail on the lid and mosey along 
with him ; and if you'll just give me a lift we'll skeet him into the hearse and 
meander along. Relations bound to have it so — don't pay no attention to dying 
injunctions, minute a corpse's gone ; but, if I had my way, if I didn't respect his 



THE UNDERTAKER'S CHAT. 249 

last wishes and tow him behind the hearse /'ll be ctiss'd. I consider that what- 
ever a corpse wants done for his comfort is little enough matter, and a man 
hain't got no right to deceive him or take advantage of him ; and whatever a 
corpse trusts me to do I'm a-going to do, you know, even if it's to stuff him and 
paint him yaller and keep him for a keepsake — you hear me me/ " 

He cracked his whip and went lumbering away with his ancient ruin of a 
hearse, and I continued my walk with a valuable lesson learned — that a healthy 
and wholesome cheerfulness is not necessarily impossible to any occupation. 
The lesson is likely to be lasting, for it will take many months to obliterate the 
memory of the remarks and circumstances that impressed it. 




CONCERNING CHAMBERMAIDS. 

AGAINST all chambermaids, of whatsoever age or nationality, I launch the 
curse of bachelordom ! Because: 

They always put the pillows at the opposite end of the bed from the 
gas-burner, so that while you read and smoke before sleeping (as is the ancient 
and honored custom of bachelors), you have to hold your book aloft, in an 
uncomfortable position, to keep the light from dazzling your eyes. 

When they find the pillows removed to the other end of the bed in the morn- 
ing, they receive not the suggestion in a friendly spirit ; but, glorying in their 

250 



CONCERNING CHAMBERMAIDS. 251 

absolute sovereignty, and unpitying your helplessness, they make the bed just 
as it was originally, and gloat in secret over the pang their tyranny will cause 
you. 

Always after that, when they find you have transposed the pillows, they undo 
your work, and thus defy and seek to embitter the life that God has given you. 

If they cannot get the light in an inconvenient position any other way, they 
move the bed. 

If you pull your trunk out six inches from the wall, so that the lid will stay 
up when you open it, they always shove that trunk back again. They do it on 
purpose. 

If you want the spittoon in a certain spot, where it will be handy, they don't, 
and so they move it. 

They always put your other boots into inaccessible places. They chiefly 
enjoy depositing them as far under the bed as the wall will permit. It is 
because this compels you to get down in an undignified attitude and make wild 
sweeps for them in the dark with the boot-jack, and swear. 

They always put the match-box in some other place. They hunt up a new 
place for it every day, and put up a bottle, or other perishable glass thing, where 
the box stood before. This is to cause you to break that glass thing, groping in 
the dark, and get yourself into trouble. 

They are for ever and ever moving the furniture. When you come in, in the 
night, you can calculate on finding the bureau where the wardrobe was in the 
morning. And when you go out in the morning, if you leave the slop-bucket 
by the door and rocking-chair by the window, when you come in at midnight, 
or thereabouts, you will fall over that rocking-chair, and you will proceed 
toward the window and sit down in that slop-tub. This will disgust you. 
They like that. 

No matter where you put anything, they are not going to let it stay there. 
They will take it and move it the first chance they get. It is their nature. And, 
besides, it gives them pleasure to be mean and contrary this way. They would 
die if they couldn't be villians. 

They always save up all the old scraps of printed rubbish you throw on the 



252 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

floor, and stack them up carefully on the table, and start the fire with your 
valuable manuscripts. If there is any one particular old scrap that you are 
more down on than any other, and which you are gradually wearing your life 
out trying to get rid of, you may take all the pains you possibly can in that 
direction, but it won't be of any use, because they will always fetch that old 
scrap back and put it in the same old place again every time. It does them 
good. 

And they use up more hair-oil than any six men. If charged with purloining 
the same, they lie about it. What do they care about a hereafter? Absolutely 
nothing. 

If you leave the key in the door for convenience sake, they will carry it down 
to the office and give it. to the clerk. They do this under the vile pretence of 
trying to protect your property from thieves; but actually they do it because 
they want to make you tramp back down-stairs after it when you come home 
tired, or put you to the trouble of sending a waiter for it, which waiter will 
expect you to pay him something. In which case I suppose the degraded 
creatures divide. 

They keep always trying to make your bed before you get up, thus destroying 
your rest and inflicting agony upon you ; but after you get up, they don't come 
any more till next day. 

They do all the mean things they can think of, arid they do them just out of 
pure cussedness, and nothing else. 

Chambermaids are dead to every human instinct. 

If I can get a bill through the Legislature abolishing chambermaids, I mean 
to do it. 




AURELIA'S UNFORTUNATE YOUNG MAN. 

THE facts in the following case came to me by letter from a young lady who 
lives in the beautiful city of San Jose; she is perfectly unknown to me, and 
simply signs herself " Aurelia Maria," which may possibly be a fictitious 
name. But no matter, the poor girl is almost heart-broken by the misfortunes she 
has undergone, and so confused by the conflicting counsels of misguided friends 
and insidious enemies, that she does not know what course to pursue in order to 
extricate herself from the web of difficulties in which she seems almost hopelessly 
involved. In this dilemma she turns to me for help, and supplicates for my 
guidance and instruction with a moving eloquence that would touch the heart of a 
statue. Hear her sad story : 

2 53 



254 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

She says that when she was sixteen years old she met and loved, with all the 
devotion of a passionate nature, a young man from New Jersey, named Williamson 
Breckinridge Caruthers, who was some six years her senior. They were engaged, 
with the free consent of their friends and relatives, and for a time it seemed as if 
their career was destined to be characterized by an immunity from sorrow beyond 
the usual lot of humanity. But at last the tide of fortune turned ; young Caruthers 
became infected with small-pox of the most virulent type, and when he recovered 
from his illness his face was pitted like a waffle-mould, and his comeliness gone for 
ever. Aurelia thought to break off the engagement at first, but pity for her 
unfortunate lover caused her to postpone the marriage-day for a season, and give 
him another trial. 

The very day before the wedding was to have taken place, Breckinridge, while 
absorbed in watching the flight of a balloon, walked into a well and fractured one 
of his legs, and it had to be taken off above the knee. Again Aurelia was moved 
to break the engagement, but again love triumphed, and she set the day forward 
and gave him another chance to reform. 

And again misfortune overtook the unhappy youth. He lost one arm by the 
premature discharge of a Fourth-of-July cannon, and within three months he got 
the other pulled out by a carding-machine. Aurelia's heart was almost crushed by 
these latter calamities. She could not but be deeply grieved to see her lover pass- 
ing from her by piecemeal, feeling, as she did, that he could not last for ever under 
this disastrous process of reduction, yet knowing of no way to stop its dreadful 
career, and in her tearful despair she almost regretted, like brokers who hold on 
and lose, that she had not taken him at first, before he had suffered such an 
alarming depreciation. Still, her brave soul bore her up, and she resolved to bear 
with her friend's unnatural disposition yet a little longer. 

Again the wedding-day approached, and again disappointment overshadowed 
it : Caruthers fell ill with the erysipelas, and lost the use of one his eyes entirely. 
The friends and relatives of the bride, considering that she had already put up with 
more than could reasonably be expected of her, now came forward and insisted that 
the match should be broken off, but after wavering awhile, Aurelia, with a generous 
spirit which did her credit, said she had reflected calmly upon the matter, and could 
not discover that Breckinridge was to blame.^ 



A URELIA ' S UN FOR TUNA TE YO UNG MA N. 255 



So she extended the time once more, and he broke his other leg. 

It was a sad day for the poor girl when she saw the surgeons reverently bearing 
away the sack whose uses she had learned by previous experience, and her heart 
told her the bitter truth that some more of her lover was gone. She felt that the 
field of her affections was growing more and more circumscribed every day, but 
once more she frowned down her relatives and renewed her betrothal. 

Shortly before the time set for the nuptials another disaster occurred. There 
was but one man scalped by the Owens River Indians last year. That man was 
Williamson Breckinridge Caruthers, of New Jersey. He was hurrying home with 
happiness in his heart, when he lost his hair for ever, and in that hour of bitterness 
he almost cursed the mistaken mercy that had spared his head. 

At last Aurelia is in serious perplexity as to what she ought to do. She still loves 
her Breckinridge, she writes, with truly womanly feeling — she still loves what is left 
of him — but her parents are bitterly opposed to the match, because he has no 
property and is disabled from working, and she has not sufficient means to support 
both comfortably. " Now, what should she do ? " she asks with painful and anxious 
solicitude. 

It is a delicate question ; it is one which involves the lifelong happiness of a 
woman, and that of nearly two-thirds of a man, and I feel that it would be assuming 
too great a responsiblity to do more than make a mere suggestion in the case. How 
would it do to build to him ? If Aurelia can afford the expense, let her furnish 
her mutilated lover with wooden arms and wooden legs, and a glass eye and a wig, 
and give him another show; give him ninety days, without grace, and if he does not 
break his neck in the meantime, marry him and take the chances. It does not seem 
to me that there is much risk, any way, Aurelia, because if he sticks to his singular 
propensity for damaging himself every time he sees a good opportunity, his next 
experiment is bound to finish him, and then you are safe, married or single. If 
married, the wooden legs and such other valuables as he may possess revert to the 
widow, and you see you sustain no actual loss save the cherished fragment of a 
noble but most unfortunate husband, who honestly strove to do right, but whose 
extraordinary instincts were against him. Try it, Maria. I have thought the 
matter over carefully and well, and it is the only chance I see for you. It would 



256 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



have been a happy conceit on the part of Caruthers if he had started with his neck 
and broken that first; but since he has seen fit to choose a different policy and 
string himself out as long as possible, I do not think we ought to upbraid him for it 
if he has enjoyed it. We must do the best we can under the circumstances, and 
try not to feel exasperated at him. 



"AFTER" JENKINS. 

A GRAND affair of a ball — the Pioneers' — came off at the Occidental some 
time ago. The following notes of the costumes worn by the belles of the 
occasion may not be uninteresting to the general reader, and Jenkins may 
get an idea therefrom — 

Mrs. W. M. was attired in an elegant pale de foie gras, made expressly for her, 
and was greatly admired. Miss S. had her hair done up. She was the centre of 
attraction for the gentlemen and the envy of all the ladies. Mrs. G. W. was taste- 
fully dressed in a tout ensemble, and was greeted with deafening applause wherever 
she went. Mrs. C. N. was superbly arrayed in white kid gloves. Her modest and 
engaging manner accorded well with the unpretending simplicity of her costume 
and caused her to be regarded with absorbing interest by every one. 

The charming Miss M. M. B. appeared in a thrilling waterfall, whose exceeding 
grace and volume compelled the homage of pioneers and emigrants alike. How 
beautiful she was ! 

The queenly Mrs. L. R. was attractively attired in her new and beautiful false 
teeth, and the bon jour effect they naturally produced was heightened by her 
enchanting and well sustained smile. 

Miss R. P., with that repugnance to ostentation in dress, which is so peculiar to 
her, was attired in a simple white Lace collar, fastened with a neat pearl-button 
solitaire. The fine contrast between the sparkling vivacity of her natural optic, and 
the steadfast attentiveness of her placid glass eye, was the subject of general and 
enthusiastic remark. 

Miss C. L. B. had her fine nose elegantly enamelled, and the easy grace with 
which she blew it from time to time, marked her as a cultivated and accomplished 
woman of the world ; its exquisitely modulated tone excited the admiration of all 
who had the happiness to hear it. 




ALL things change except bar- 
bers, the ways of barbers, and 
the surroundings of barbers. 
These never change. What one ex- 
periences in a barber's shop the first 
time he enters one is what he always 
experiences in barbers' shops after- 
wards till the end of his days. I got 
shaved this morning as usual. A man 
approached the door from Jones Street 
as I approached it from Main — a thing 
that always happens. I hurried up, but it was of no use ; he entered the door one 
little step ahead of me, and I followed in on his heels and saw him take the only 
*7 _ 257 , 



«S 8 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

vacant chair, the one presided over by the best barber. It always happens so. I 
sat down, hoping that I might fall heir to the chair belonging to the better of the 
remaining two barbers, for he had already begun combing his man's hair, while his 
comrade was not yet quite done rubbing up and oiling his customer's locks. I 
watched the probabilities with strong interest. When I saw that No. 2 was gaining 
on No. 1 my interest grew to solicitude. When No. 1 stopped a moment to make 
change on a bath ticket for a new comer, and lost ground in the race, my solicitude 
rose to anxiety. When No. 1 caught up again, and both he and his comrade were 
pulling the towels away and brushing the powder from their customer's cheeks, 
and it was about an even thing which one would say " Next !" first, my very breath 
stood still with the suspense. But when at the culminating moment No. 1 stopped 
to pass a comb a couple of times through his customer's eyebrows, I saw that he 
had lost the race by a single instant, and I rose indignant and quitted the shop, to 
keep from falling into the hands of No. 2 ; for I have none of that enviable firmness 
that enables a man to look calmly into the eyes of a waiting barber and tell him he 
will wait for his fellow-barber's chair. 

I stayed out fifteen minutes, and then went back, hoping for better luck. Of 
course all the chairs were occupied now, and four men sat waiting, silent, unsocia- 
ble, distraught, and looking bored, as men always do who are awaiting their turn 
in a barber's shop. I sat down in one of the iron-armed compartments of an old 
sofa, and put in the time for a while reading the framed advertisements of all sorts 
of quack nostrums for dyeing and coloring the hair. Then I read the greasy names 
on the private bay rum bottles; read the names and noted the numbers on the 
private shaving cups in the pigeon-holes ; studied the stained and damaged cheap 
prints on the walls, of battles, early Presidents, and voluptuous recumbent sultanas, 
and the tiresome and everlasting young girl putting her grandfather's spectacles 
on ; execrated in my heart the cheerful canary and the distracting parrot that few 
barbers' shops are without. Finally, I searched out the least dilapidated of last 
year's illustrated papers that littered the foul centre-table, and conned their 
unjustifiable misrepresentations of old forgotten events. 

At last my turn came. A voice said "Next!" and I surrendered to — No. 2, of 
course. It always happens so. I said meekly that I was in a hurry, and it affected 



ABOUT BARBERS. 



259 



him as strongly as if he had never heard it. He shoved up my head, and put a 
napkin under it. He ploughed his fingers into my collar and fixed a towel there. 
He explored my hair with his claws and suggested that it needed trimming. I said 
I did not want it trimmed. He explored again and said it was pretty long for the 
present style — better have a little taken off; it needed it behind especially. I said 
I had had it cut only a week before. He yearned over it reflectively a moment, 
and then asked with a disparaging manner, who cut it? I came back at him 
promptly with a "You did!" I had him there. Then he fell to stirring up his 



lather and re- 
ki the glass, stop- 
then to get close 
chin critically 
pimple. Then 
side of my face 
was ab ou t to 
when a dog fight 
tention, and he 
dow and stayed 
losing two shill- 
in bets with the 
thing which gave 
tion. He finished 
then began to 
with his hand. 




garding himself 
ping now and 
and examine his 
or inspect a 
he lathered one 
thoroughly, and 
lather the other, 
attracted his at- 
^ ran to the win- 
\. and saw it out, 
ings on the result 
other barbers, a 
me great satisfac- 
lathering, and 
rub in the suds 
He now began 



to sharpen his razor on an old suspender, and was delayed a good deal on account 
of a controversy about a cheap masquerade ball he had figured at the night before, 
in red cambric and bogus ermine, as some kind of a king. He was so gratified 
with being chaffed about some damsel whom he had smitten with his charms that 
he used every means to continue the controversy by pretending to be annoyed at 
the chaffings of his fellows. This matter begot more surveyings of himself in the 
glass, and he put down his razor and brushed his hair with elaborate care, plaster- 
ing an inverted arch of it down on his forehead, accomplishing an accurate " part " 



260 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



behind, and brushing the two wings forward over his ears with nice exactness. In 
the meantime the lather was drying on my face, and apparently eating into my 
vitals. 

Now he began to shave, digging his fingers into my countenance to stretch the 
skin and bundling and tumbling my head this way and that as convenience in 
shaving demanded. As long as he was on the tough sides of my face I did not 
suffer; but when he began to rake, and rip, and tug at my chin, the tears came. 
He now made a handle of my nose, to assist him in shaving the corners of my 



upper lip, and it 
circumstantial evi- 
covered that a part }/Qi 
shop was to clean 
lamps. I had often 
indolent way 
bers did that, or 
boss. 

I was amusing my- 
■where he would be 
me this time, but 
*ne, and sliced me 

chin before I had 
*ip. He immedi- 
jhis razor — he might 
Core. I do not like 
would not let him 



was by this bit of 
dence that I dis- 
of his duties in the 
the kerosene 
wondered in an 
whether the bar- 
whether it was the 
. About this time 
self trying to guess 
most likely to cut 
h e got ahead o f 
on the end of the 
got my mind made 
ately sharpened 
have done it be- 
a close shave, and 
go over me a 

second time. I tried to get him to put up his razor, dreading that he would make 
for the side of my chin, my pet tender spot, a place which a razor cannot touch 
twice without making trouble; but he said he only wanted to just smooth off one 
little roughness, and in the same moment he slipped his razor along the forbidden 
•ground, and the dreaded pimple-signs of a close shave rose up smarting and 
answered to the call. Now he soaked his towel in bay rum, and slapped it all over 
my face nastily ; slapped it over as if a human being ever yet washed his face in 




ABOUT BARBERS. 261 



that way. Then he dried it by slapping with the dry part of the towel, as if a 
human being ever dried his face in such a fashion ; but a barber seldom rubs you 
like a Christian. Next he poked bay rum into the cut place with his towel, then 
chckjd the wound with powdered starch, then soaked it with bay rum again, and 
would have gone on soaking and powdering it for evermore, no doubt, if I had not 
rebelled and begged off. He powdered my whole face now, straightened me up, 
and began to plough my hair thoughtfully with his hands. Then he suggested a 
shampoo, and said my hair needed it badly, very badly. I observed that I sham- 
pooed it myself very thoroughly in the bath yesterday. I "had him " again. He 
next recommended some of " Smith's Hair Glorifier," and offered to sell me a 
bottle. I declined. He praised the new perfume, " Jones' Delight of the Toilet,'* 
and proposed to sell me some of that. I declined again. He tendered me a tooth- 
wash atrocity of his own invention, and when I declined offered to trade knives 
with me. 

He returned to business after the miscarriage of this last enterprise, sprinkled 
me all over, legs and all, greased my hair in defiance of my protest against it, 
rubbed and scrubbed a good deal of it out by the roots, and combed and brushed, 
the rest, parting it behind, and plastering the eternal inverted arch of hair down 
on my forehead, and then, while combing my scant eyebrows and defiling them 
with pomade, strung out an account of the achievements of a six-ounce black and 
tan terrier of his till I heard the whistles blow for noon, and knew I was five min- 
utes too late for the train. Then he snatched away the towel, brushed it lightly 
about my face, passed his comb through my eyebrows once more, and gaily sang 
out "Next!" 

This barber fell down and died of apoplexy two hours later. I am waiting over 
a day for my revenge — I am going to attend his funeral. 



"PARTY CRIES" IN IRELAND. 

BELFAST is a peculiarly relig- 
ious community. This may be 
said of the whole of the north 
of Ireland. About one half of the 
people are Protestants and the other 
half Catholics. Each party does all 
it can to make its own doctrines pop- 
ular and draw the affections of the 
irreligious toward them. One hears 
constantly of the most touching in- 
stances of this zeal. A week ago a 




vast concourse of Catholics assembled at Armagh to dedicate a new Cathedral; 
and when they started home again the roadways were lined with groups of 

262 



"PARTY CRIES" IN IRELAND. 263 

meek and lowly Protestants who stoned them till all the region round about 
was marked with blood. I thought that only Catholics argued in that way, but 
it seems to be a mistake. 

Every man in the community is a missionary and carries a brick to admon- 
ish the erring with. The law has tried to break this up, but not with perfect 
success. It has decreed that irritating "party cries" shall not be indulged in, 
and that persons uttering them shall be fined forty shillings and costs. And so, 
in the police court reports, every day, one sees these fines recorded. Last week 
a girl twelve years old was fined the usual forty shillings and costs for pro- 
claiming in the public streets that she was " a Protestant." The usual cry is, 
•'To hell with the Pope!" or "To hell with the Protestants! " according to the 
utterer's system of salvation. 

One of Belfast's local jokes was very good. It referred to the uniform and 
inevitable fine of forty shillings and costs for uttering a party cry — and it is no 
economical fine for a poor man, either, by the way. They say that a policeman 
found a drunken man lying on the ground, up a dark alley, entertaining him- 
self with shouting, " To hell with ! " " To hell with ! " The officer smelt a fine 
— informers get half: 

" What's that you say ? " 

" To hell with ! " 

" To hell with who ? To hell with what 7 " 

" Ah, bedad ye can finish it yourself — it's too expinsive for me! " 

I think the seditious disposition, restrained by the economical instinct is 
finely put, in that. 



THE FACTS CONCERNING THE RECENT RESIGNATION. 

Washington, Dec. 2, 1867. 

I HAVE resigned. The Government appears to go on much the same, but there 
is a spoke out of its wheel, nevertheless. I was clerk of the Senate Committee* 
on Conchology, and I have thrown up the position. I could see the plainest 
disposition on the part of the other members of the Government to debar me 
from having any voice in the counsels of the nation, and so I could no longer 
hold office and retain my self-respect. If I were to detail all the outrages that 
were heaped upon me during the six days that I was connected with the Govern- 
ment in an official capacity, the narrative would fill a volume. They appointed me 
clerk of that Committee on Conchology, and then allowed me no amanuensis to play 
billiards with. I would have borne that, lonesome as it was, if I had met with that 
courtesy from the other members of the Cabinet which was my due. But I did not. 
Whenever I observed that the head of a department was pursuing a wrong course, 
I laid down everything and went and tried to set him right, as it was my duty to 
do; and I never was thanked for it in a single instance. I went, with the best 
intentions in the world, to the Secretary of the Navy, and said — 

" Sir, I cannot see that Admiral Farragut is doing anything but skirmishing around 
there in Europe, having a sort of pic-nic. Now, that may be all very well, but it 
does not exhibit itself to me in that light. If there is no fighting for him to do, let 
him come home. There is no use in a man having a whole fleet for a pleasure 
excursion. It is too expensive. Mind, I do not object to pleasure excursions for 
the naval officers — pleasure excursions that are in reason — pleasure excursions that 

are economical. Now, they might go down the Mississippi on a raft " 

You ought to have heard him storm ! One would have supposed I had commit- 
ted a crime of some kind. But I didn't mind. I said it was cheap, and full of 

264 



FACTS CONCERNING THE RECENT RESIGNATION. 265 



republican simplicity, and perfectly safe. I said that, for a tranquil pleasure 
excursion, there was nothing equal to a raft. 

Then the Secretary of the Navy asked me who I was ; and when I told him I 
was connected with the Government, he wanted to know in what capacity. I said 
that, without remarking upon the singularity of such a question, coming, as it did, 
from a member of that same Government, I would inform him that I was clerk 
of the Senate Committee on Conchology. Then there was a fine storm! He 
finished by ordering me to leave the premises, and give my attention strictly to my 
own business in future. My first impulse was to get him removed. However, that 
would harm others beside himself, and do me no real good, and so I let him stay. 
I went next to the Secretary of War, who was not inclined to see me at all until 
he learned that I was connected with the Government. If I had not been on 
important business, I suppose I could not have got in. I asked him for a light (he 
was smoking at the time), and then I told him I had no fault to find with his 
defending the parole stipulations of General Lee and his comrades in arms, but 
that I could not approve of his method of fighting the Indians on the Plains. I 
said he fought too scattering. He ought to get the Indians more together — get 
them together in some convenient place, where he could have provisions enough 
for both parties, and then have a general massacre. I said there was nothing so 
convincing to an Indian as a general massacre. If he could not approve of the 
massacre, I said the next surest thing for an Indian was soap and education. Soap 
and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the 
long run ; because a half-massacred Indian may recover, but if you educate him 
and wash him, it is bound to finish him sometime or other. It undermines his 
constitution ; it strikes at the foundation of his being. " Sir," I said, " the time has 
come when blood-curdling cruelty has become necessary. Inflict soap and a 
spelling-book on every Indian that ravages the Plains, and let them die ! " 

The Secretary of War asked me if I was a member of the Cabinet, and I said I 
was. He inquired what position I held, and I said I was clerk of the Senate 
Committee on Conchology. I was then ordered under arrest for contempt of court, 
and restrained of my liberty for the best part of the day. 

I almost resolved to be silent thenceforward, and let the Government get along 



266 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

the best way it could. But duty called, and I obeyed. I called on the Secretary 
of the Treasury. He said — 

" What will you have ? " 

The question threw me off my guard. I said, "Rum punch." 

He said, " If you have got any business here, sir, state it — and in as few words as 
possible." 

I then said that I was sorry he had seen fit to change the subject so abruptly, 
because such conduct was very offensive to me; but under the circumstances I 
would overlook the matter and come to the point. I now went into an earnest 
expostulation with him upon the extravagant length of his report. I said it was 
expensive, unnecessary, and awkwardly constructed; there were no descriptive 
passages in it, no poetry, no sentiment — no heroes, no plot, no pictures — not even 
woodcuts. Nobody would read it, that was a clear case. I urged him not to ruin 
his reputation by getting out a thing like that. If he ever hoped to succeed in 
literature, he must throw more variety into his writings. He must beware of dry 
detail. I said that the main popularity of the almanac was derived from its poetry 
and conundrums, and that a few conundrums distributed around through his 
Treasury report would help the sale of it more than all the internal revenue he 
could put into it. I said these things in the kindest spirit, and yet the Secretary 
of the Treasury fell into a violent passion. He even said T was an ass. He abused 
me in the most vindictive manner, and said that if I came there again meddling 
with his business, he would throw me out of the window. I said I would take my 
hat and go, if I could not be treated with the respect due to my office, and I did 
go. It was just like a new author. They always think they know more than 
anybody else when they are getting out their first book. Nobody can tell them 
anything. 

During the whole time that I was connected with the Government it seemed as 
if I could not do anything in an official capacity without getting myself into trouble. 
And yet I did nothing, attempted nothing, but what I conceived to be for the good 
of my country. The sting of my wrongs may have driven me to unjust and harmful 
conclusions, but it surely seemed to me that the Secretary of State, the Secretary 
of War, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others of my confreres, had conspired 



FACTS CONCERNING THE RECENT RESIGNATION. 267 

from the very beginning to drive me from the Administration. I never attended 
but one Cabinet meeting while I was connected with the Government. That was 
sufficient for me. The servant at the White House door did not seem disposed to 
make way for me until I asked if the other members of the Cabinet had arrived. 
He said they had, and I entered. They were all there ; but nobody offered me a 
seat. They stared at me as if I had been an intruder. The President said — 

" Well, sir, who ^xq you ? " 

I handed him my card, and he read — l< The Hon. Mark Twain, Clerk of the 
Senate Committee on Conchology." Then he looked at me from head to foot, as 
if he had never heard of me before. The Secretary of the Treasury said — 

" This is the meddlesome ass that came to recommend me to put poetry and 
conundrums in my report, as if it were an almanac." 

The Secretary of War said — " It is the same visionary that came to me yesterday 
with a scheme to educate a portion of the Indians to death, and massacre the 
balance." 

The Secretary of the Navy said — " I recognize this youth as the person who has 
been interfering with my business time and again during the week. He is distressed 
about Admiral Farragut's using a whole fleet for a pleasure excursion, as he terms 
it. His proposition about some insane pleasure excursion on a raft is too absurd 
to repeat." 

I said — " Gentlemen, I perceive here a disposition to throw discredit upon every 
act of my official career; I perceive, also, a disposition to debar me from all voice 
in the counsels of the nation. No notice whatever was sent to me to-day. It was 
•only by the merest chance that I learned that there was going to be a Cabinet 
meeting. But let these things pass. All I wish to know is, is this a Cabinet 
meeting, or is it not? " 

The President said it was. 

" Then," I said, '*' let us proceed to business at once, and not fritter away 
valuable time in unbecoming fault-findings with each other's official conduct." 

The Secretary of State now spoke up, in- his benignant way, and said, "Young 
man, you are laboring under a mistake. The clerks of the Congressional commit- 
tees are not members of the Cabinet. Neither are the doorkeepers of the Capitol, 



268 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

strange as it may seem. Therefore, much as we could desire your more than 
human wisdom in our deliberations, we cannot lawfully avail ourselves of it. The 
counsels of the nation must proceed without you; if disaster follows, as follow full 
well it may, be it balm to your sorrowing spirit, that by deed and voice you did 
what in you lay to avert it. You have my blessing. Farewell." 

These gentle words soothed my troubled breast, and I went away. But the 
servants of a nation can know no peace. I had hardly reached my den in the 
capitol, and disposed my feet on the table like a representative, when one of the 
Senators on the Conchological Committee came in in a passion and said — 

" Where have you been all day ? " 

I observed that, if that was anybody's affair but my own, I had been to a Cabinet 
meeting. 

"To a Cabinet meeting? I would like to know what business you had at a 
Cabinet meeting? " 

I said I went there to consult — allowing for the sake of argument, that he was in 
anywise concerned m the matter. He grew insolent then, and ended by saying he 
had wanted me for three days past to copy a report on bomb-shells, egg-shells, 
clam-shells, and I don't know what all, connected with conchology, and nobody had 
been able to find me. 

This was too much. This was the feather that broke the clerical camel's back. 
I said, " Sir, do you suppose that I am going to work for six dollars a day? If that 
is the idea, let me recommend the Senate Committee on Conchology to hire some- 
body else. I am the slave of no faction ! Take back your degrading commission. 
Give me liberty, or give me death ! : ' 

From that hour I was no longer connected with the Government. Snubbed by 
the department, snubbed by the Cabinet, snubbed at last by the chairman of a 
committee I was endeavoring to adorn, I yielded to persecution, cast far from me 
the perils and seductions of my great office, and forsook my bleeding country in 
the hour of her peril. 

But I had done the State some service, and I sent in my bill: — 

The United States of America in account with the Hon Clerk of the Senate Committee on Conchology, Dr. 

To consultation with Secretary of War, . . $5° 

To consultation with Secretary of Navy, 50 



FACTS CONCERNING THE RECENT RESIGNATION. 269 

To consultation with Secretary of the Treasury, ....... 50 

Cabinet consultation, .......... No charge. 

To mileage to and from Jerusalem,* via Egypt, Algiers, Gibraltar, and Cadiz, 14,000 

miles, at 20c. a mile, . 2800 

To salary as Clerk of Senate Committee on Conchology, six days, at $6 per day, . 36 

Total . $2986 

Not an item of this bill has been paid, except that trifle of 36 dollars for clerkship 
salary. The Secretary of the Treasury, pursuing me to the last, drew his pen 
through all the other items, and simply marked in the margin "Not allowed." So, 
the dread alternative is embraced at last. Repudiation has begun ! The nation is 
lost. 

I am done with official life for the present. Let those clerks who are willing to 
be imposed on remain. I know numbers of them, in the Departments, who are 
never informed when there is to be a Cabinet meeting, whose advice is never asked 
about war, or finance, or commerce, by the heads of the nation, any more than if 
they were not connected with the Government, and who actually stay in their 
offices day after day and work ! They know their importance to the nation, and 
they unconsciously show it in their bearing, and the way they order their suste- 
nance at the restaurant — but they work. I know one who has to paste all sorts of 
little scraps from the newspaper into a scrap-book — sometimes as many as eight or 
ten scraps a day. He doesn't do it well, but he does it as well as he can. It is 
very fatiguing. It is exhausting to the intellect. Yet he only gets 1800 dollars a 
year. With a brain like his, that young man could amass thousands and thousands 
of dollars in some other pursuit, if he chose to do it. But no — his heart is with his 
country, and he will serve her as long as she has got a scrap-book left. And I 
know clerks that don't know how to write very well, but such knowledge as they 
possess they nobly lay at the feet of their country, and toil on and suffer for 2500 
dollars a year. What they write has to be written over again by other clerks, some- 
times ; but when a man has done his best for his country, should his country complain ? 
Then there are clerks that have no clerkships, and are waiting, and waiting, and 
waiting, for a vacancy — waiting patiently for a chance to help their country out — 

* Territorial delegates charge mileage both ways, although they never go back when they get here 
once. Why my mileage is denied me is more than I can understand. 



«7<> MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

and while they are waiting, they only get barely, 2000 dollars a year for it. It is sad- 
it is very, very sad. When a member of Congress has a friend who is gifted, but has no 
employment wherein his great powers may be brought to bear, he confers him upon 
his country, and gives him a clerkship in a Department. And there that man has 
to slave his life out, fighting documents for the benefit of a nation that never thinks 
of him, never sympathizes with him — and all for 2000 or 3000 dollars a year. 
When I shall have completed my list of all the clerks in the several departments, 
with my statement of what they have to do, and what they get for it, you will see 
that there are not half enough clerks, and that what there are do not get half 
enough pay. 





THE following I find in a 
Sandwich Island paper which 
some friend has sent me from 
that tranquil far-off retreat. The 
coincidence between my own ex- 
perience and that here set down 
by the late Mr. Benton is so re- 
markable that I cannot forbear 
publishing and commenting upon 
the paragraph. The Sandwich 
Island paper says : — 

" How touching is this tribute of the late 
Hon. T. H. Benton to his mother's in- 
fluence : — ' My mother asked me never to 
use tobacco ; I have never touched it from 
that time to the present day. She asked 
me not to gamble, and I have never gam- 
bled. I cannot tell who is losing in games 
that are being played. She admonished 
me, too, against liquor-drinking, and what- 
ever capacity for endurence I have at 
present, and whatever usefulness I may 
have attained through life, I attribute to 
having complied with her pious and cor- 
rect wishes. When I was seven years of 
age she asked me not to drink, and then 
I made a resolution of total abstinence ; 
and that I have adhered to it through all 
time I owe to my mother.' " 

I never saw anything so curious. It is almost an exact epitome of my own 
moral career — after simply substituting a grandmother for a mother. How 
well I remember my grandmother's asking me not to use tobacco, good 
old soul ! She said, " You're at it again, are you, you whelp ? Now, don't 
ever let me catch you chewing tobacco before breakfast again, or I lay I'll black- 
snake you within an inch of your life ! " I have never touched it at that hour 
of the morning from that time to the present day, 

271 



272 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

She asked me not to gamble. She whispered and said, " Put up those wicked 
cards this minute! — two pair and a jack, you numskull, and the other fellow's 
got a flush ! " 

I never have gambled from that day to this — never once — without a " cold 
deck" in my pocket. I cannot even tell who is going to lose in games that are 
being played unless I dealt myself. 

When I was two years of age she asked me not to drink, and then I made a 
resolution of total abstinence. That I have adhered to it and enjoyed the benefi- 
cent effects of it through all time, I owe to my grandmother. I have never 
drunk a drop from that day to this of any kind of water. 




F you get into conversation with 
a stranger in Honolulu, and ex- 
perience that natural desire to 
know what sort of ground you are 
treading on by rinding out what 
manner of man your stranger is, 
strike out boldly and address him 
as " Captain." Watch him narrow- 
ly, and if you see by his counte- 
nance that you are on the wrong 
track, ask him where he preaches. 
It is a safe bet that he is either a 
missionary or captain of a whaler. 
I became personally acquainted with seventy-two captains and ninety-six 
missionaries. The captains and ministers form one-half of the population ; 
18 273 



*74 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

the third fourth is composed of common Kanakas and mercantile foreigners 
and their families; and the final fourth is made up of high officers of the 
Hawaiian Government. And there are just about cats enough for three apiece 
all around. 

A solemn stranger met me in the suburbs one day, and said: 

" Good morning, your reverence. Preach in the stone church yonder, no 
doubt ! " 

" No, I don't. I'm not a preacher." 

" Really, I beg your pardon, captain. I trust you had a good season. How 
much oil " 

" Oil ! Why what do you take me for? I'm not a whaler." 

" Oh ! I beg a thousands pardons, your Excellency. Major-General in the 
household troops, no doubt ? Minister of the Interior, likely ? Secretary of 
War ? First Gentleman of the Bedchamber ? Commissioner of the Royal " 

"Stuff! man. I'm not connected in any way with the Government." 

" Bless my life ! Then who the mischief are you ? what the mischief are you > 
and how the mischief did you get here? and where in thunder did you come 
from?" 

" I'm only a private personage — an unassuming stranger — lately arrived from 
America." 

" No ! Not a missionary ! not a whaler ! not a member of his Majesty's 
Government ! not even Secretary of the Navy ! Ah ! heaven ! it is too blissful 
to be true ; alas ! I do but dream. And yet that noble, honest countenance— 
those oblique, ingenuous eyes — that massive head, incapable of — of anything; 
your hand; give me your hand, bright waif. Excuse these tears. For sixteen- 
weary years I have yearned for a moment like this, and " 

Here his feeling were too much for him, and he swooned away. I pitied this 
poor creature from the bottom of my heart. I was deeply moved. I shed a few 
tears on him, and kissed him for his mother. I then took what small change 
he had, and " shoved." 




["Never put off till to-morrow what you*, 
can do day after to-morrow just as well." — B^ 

THIS party was one of those 
persons whom they call Phi- 
losophers. He was twins,, 
being born simultaneously in two 
different houses in the city of Boston. 
These houses remain unto this day,, 
and have signs upon them worded 
in accordance with the facts. The- 
sio-ns are considered well enough to> 
have, though not necessary, because 
the inhabitants point out the twa 
birth-places to the stranger anyhow, 
and sometimes as often as several 
times in the same day. The subject of this memoir was of a vicious disposi- 
tion, and early prostituted his talents to the invention of maxims and aphorisms 

275 



276 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



calculated to inflict suffering upon the rising generation of all subsequent ages. 
His simplest acts, also, were contrived with a view to their being held up for 
the emulation of boys for ever — boys who might otherwise have been happy. 
It was in this spirit that he became the son of a soap-boiler, and probably for 
no other reason than that the efforts of all future boys who tried to be anything 
might be looked upon with suspicion unless they were the sons of soap-boilers. 
With a malevolence which is without parallel in history, he would work all day, 
and then sit up nights, and let on to be studying algebra by the light of a 



smouldering fire, 
boys might have 
else have Benjamin 
up to them. Not 
proceedings, he 
living wholly on 
and studying 
t i m e — a thing 
affliction to mil- 
whose fathers had 
pernicious biogra- 
His maxims 
mosity towards 
a boy cannot fol- 
natural instinct 
over some of those 
risms and hearing 













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so that all other 
to do that also, or 
Franklin thrown 
satisfied with these 
had a fashion of 
bread and water, 
astronomy at meal 
which has brought 
lions of boys since, 
read Franklin's 
phy. 

were full of ani- 
boys. Nowadays 
low out a single 
without tumbling 
everlasting apho- 
from Franklin on 



the spot. If he buys two cents' worth of peanuts, his father says, " Remember 
what Franklin has said, my son — 'A groat a day's a penny a year;'" and the 
comfort is all gone out of those peanuts. If he wants to spin his top when he 
has done work, his father quotes, " Procrastination is the thief of time." If 
he does a virtuous action, he never gets any thing for it, because " Virtue is 
its own reward." And that boy is hounded to death and robbed of his natural 
rest, because Franklin said once, in one of his inspired flights of malignity — 



THE LA TE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 277 

" Early to bed and early to rise 
Makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise." 

As if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise on such 
terms. The sorrow that that maxim has cost me through my parents' experi- 
mentingon me with it, tongue cannot tell. The legitimate result is my present state 
of general debility, indigence, and mental aberration. My parents used to have 
me up before nine o'clock in the morning, sometimes, when I was a boy. If 
they had let me take my natural rest, where would I have been now? Keeping 
store, no doubt, and respected by all. 

And what an adroit old adventurer the subject of this memoir was! In 
order to get a chance to fly his kite on Sunday he used to hang a key on the 
string and let on to be fishing for lightning. And a guileless public would go 
home chirping about the "wisdom " and the "genius" of the hoary Sabbath- 
breaker. If anybody caught him playing " mumble-peg" by himself, after the 
age of sixty, he would immediately appear to be ciphering out how the grass 
grew — as if it was any of his business. My grandfather knew him well, and he 
says Franklin was always fixed — always ready. If a body, during his old age, 
happened on him unexpectedly when he was catching flies, or making mud 
pies, or sliding on a cellar-door, he would immediately look wise, and rip out a 
maxim, and walk off with his nose in the air and his cap turned wrong side 
before, trying to appear absent-minded and eccentric. He was a hard lot. 

He invented a stove that would smoke your head off in four hours by the 
clock. One can see the almost devilish satisfaction he took in it by his giving 
it his name. 

He was always proud of telling how he entered Philadelphia for the first time, 
with nothing in the world but two shillings in his pocket and four rolls of 
bread under his arm. But really, when you come to examine it critically, it 
was nothing. Anybody could have done it. 

To the subject of this memoir belongs the honor of recommending the army 
to go back to bows and arrows in place of bayonets and muskets. He observed, 
with his customary force, that the bayonet was very well under some circum- 
stances, but that he doubted whether it could be used with accuracy at a long 
range. 



^27 8 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



Benjamin Franklin did a great many notable things for his country, and 
made her young name to be honored in many lands as the mother of such a son. 
It is not the idea of this memoir to ignore that or cover it up. No ; the simple 
idea of it is to snub those pretentious maxims of his, which he worked up with 
a great show of originality out of truisms that had become wearisome platitudes 
as early as the dispersion from Babel; and also to snub his stove, and his mili- 
tarv inspirations, his unseemly endeavor to make himself conspicuous when he 



entered Philadel- 
his kite and fool- 
in all sorts of such 
ought to have been 
fat, or constructing 
desired to do away 
the prevalent 
•among heads of 
Franklin acquired 
working for noth- 
moonlight, and 
night instead of 
ing like a Chris- 
programme, rigid- 
make a Franklin 
f o o 1 . It is t i m e 




phia, and his flying 
ing away his time 
ways w h e n he 
foraging for soap- 
candles. I merely 
with somewhat of 
calamitous idea 
families that 
his great genius by 
ing, studying by 
getting up in the 
waiting till morn- 
tian ; and that this 
lv inflicted, will 
of every father's 
these gentlemen 



were finding out that these execrable eccentricities of instinct and conduct are 
•only the evidences of genius, not the creators of it. I wish I had been the father 
of my parents long enough to make them comprehend this truth, and thus 
prepare them to let their son have an easier time of it. When I was a child I 
had to boil soap, notwithstanding my father was wealthy, and I had to get up 
early and study geometry at breakfast, and peddle my own poetry, and do every- 
thing just as Franklin did, in the solemn hope that I would be a Franklin some 
day. And here I am. 



c - r RED 





* 



IONEY 

THEATRE |ROYA L 

Stockto N-Q N~-TE E5. 









IE "BLIND LETTER" DEPARTMENT, LONDON P. O. 

\ BOUT the 

JL JL most curious 
feature of the 

London post-office 

is the "Blind-Letter" 

Department. Only 

one clerk is em- 
ployed in it and 

sometimes his place 

is a sinecure for a 

day at a time, and 

then again it is just 

the reverse. H i s 

specialty is a won- 
derful knack in the 
way of deciphering atrocious penmanship. That man can read anything 
that is done with a pen. All superscriptions are carried to him which the 
mighty army of his fellow clerks cannot make out, and he spells them off 
like print and sends them on their way. He keeps in a book, fac-similes of 

279 



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MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



the most astonishing specimens he comes across. He also keeps fac-similes of 
many of the envelopes that pass through the office with queer pictures drawn 




l?&A'£>/?£/1tf 



upon them. He was kind enough to have some of the picture-envelopes and 




w 

£> W 

w ^ 
H o 

as 
O 



execrable superscriptions copied for me, (the latter with " translations " added,) 
and I here offer them for the inspection of the curious reader. 



" BLIND LETTER" DEPARTMENT, LONDON P. O. 



281 




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S H 

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INTELLIGENCE OFFICE FOR 

MINISTERS. 




SENT BY ONE CLERGYMAN TO ANOTHER. 



282 



"BLIND LETTER" DEPARTMENT, LONDON P. O. 




FIRST INTERVIEW WITH ARTEMUS WARD. 

I HAD never seen him before. He brought letters of introduction from mutual 
friends in San Francisco, and by invitation I breakfasted with him. It was 
almost religion, there in the silver mines, to precede such a meal with whiskey 
cocktails. Artemus, with the true cosmopolitan instinct, always deferred to the 
customs of the country he was in, and so he ordered three of those abominations. 
Hingston was present. I said I would rather not drink a whiskey cocktail. I 
said it would go right to my head, and confuse me so that I would be in a helpless 
tangle in ten minutes. I did not want to act like a lunatic before strangers. But 

283 



284 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

Artemus gently insisted, and I drank the treasonable mixture under protest, and 
felt all the time that I was doing a thing I might be sorry for. In a minute or two 
I began to imagine that my ideas were clouded. I waited in great anxiety for the 
conversation to open, with a sort of vague hope that my understanding would prove 
clear, after all, and my misgivings groundless. 

Artemus dropped an unimportant remark or two, and then. assumed a look of 
superhuman earnestness, and made the following astounding speech. He said : — 

" Now there is one thing I ought to ask you about before I forget it. You have 
been here in Silverland — here in Nevada — two or three years, and, of course, your 
position on the daily press has made it necessary for you to go down in the mines 
and examine them carefully in detail, and therefore you know all about the silver- 
mining business. Now, what I want to get at is — is, well, the way the deposits of 
ore are made, you know. For instance. Now, as I understand it, the vein which 
contains the silver is sandwiched in between casings of granite, and runs along the 
ground, and sticks up like a curb-stone. Well, take a vein forty feet thick, for 
example, or eighty, for that matter, or even a hundred — say you go down on it with 
a shaft, straight down, you know, or with what you call 'incline,' maybe. you go 
down five hundred feet, or maybe you don't go down but two hundred — any way 
you go down, and all the time this vein grows narrower, when the casings come 
nearer or approach each other, you may say — that is, when they do approach, which 
of course they do not always do, particularly in cases where the nature of the 
formation is such that they stand apart wider than they otherwise would, and which 
geology has failed to account for, although everything in that science goes to prove 
that, all things being equal, it would if it did not, or would not certainly if it did, 
and then of course they are. Do not you think it is?" 

I said to myself: — 

" Now I just knew how it would be — that whiskey cocktail has done the business 
for me; I don't understand any more than a clam." 

And then I said aloud — 

"I — I — that is — if you don't mind, would you — would you say that over again? 
I ought " 

" Oh, certainly, certainly ! You see I am very unfamiliar with the subject, ar.d 
perhaps I don't present my case clearly, but I " 



FIRST INTER VIE W WITH ARTEMUS WARD. 285 



" No, no — no, no — you state it plain enough, but that cocktail has muddled me 
a little. But I will — no, I do understand for that matter ; but I would get the 
hang of it all the better if you went over it again — and I'll pay better attention this 
time." 

He said, " Why, what I was after was this." 

[Here he became even more fearfully impressive than ever, and emphasized each 
particular point by checking it off on his finger ends.] 

" This vein, or lode, or ledge, or whatever you call it, runs along between two 
layers of granite, just the same as if it were a sandwich. Very well. Now, suppose 
you go down on that, say a thousand feet, or maybe twelve hundred (it don't really 
matter), before you drift, and then you start your drifts, some of them across the 
ledge, and others along the length of it, where the sulphurets — I believe they call 
them sulphurets, though why they should, considering that, so far as I can see, the 
main dependence of a miner does not so lie, as some suppose, but in which it can- 
not be successfully maintained, wherein the same should not continue, while part 
and parcel of the same ore not committed to either in the sense referred to, whereas, 
under different circumstances, the most inexperienced among us could not detect 
it if it were, or might overlook it if it did, or scorn the very idea of such a thing, 
even though it were palpably demonstrated as such. Am I not right?" 

I said, sorrowfully — " I feel ashamed of myself, Mr. Ward. I know I ought to 
understand you perfectly well, but you see that treacherous whiskey cocktail has 
got into my head, and now I cannot understand even the simplest proposition. I 
told you how it would be." 

"Oh, don't mind it, don't mind it; the fault was my own, no doubt — though I 
did think it clear enough for " 

" Don't say a word. Clear! Why, you stated it as clear as the sun to anybody 
but an abject idiot; but it's that confounded cocktail that has played the mischief." 

" No ; now don't say that. I'll begin it all over again, and " 

" Don't now — for goodness sake, don't do anything of the kind, because I tell 
you my head is in such a condition that I don't believe I could understand the 
most trifling question a man could ask me." 

" Now, don't you be afraid. I'll put it so plain this time that you can't help but 
get the hang of it. We will begin at the very beginning." [Leaning far across the 



286 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



table, with determined impressiveness wrought upon his every feature, and fingers 
prepared to keep tally of each point as enumerated ; and I, leaning forward with 
painful interest, resolved to comprehend or perish.] " You know the vein, the 
ledge, tl*e thing that contains the metal, whereby it constitutes the medium between 
.all other forces, whether of present or remote agencies, so brought to bear in favor 
of the former against the latter, or the latter against the former or all, or both, or 
compromising the relative differences existing within the radius whence culminate 
the several degrees of similarity to which " 

I said — " Oh, hang my wooden head, it ain't any use ! — it ain't any use to try — 
I can't understand anything. The plainer you get it the more I can't get the hang 
of it." 

I heard a suspicious noise behind me, and turned in time to see Hingston 
dodging behind a newspaper, and quaking with a gentle ecstasy of laughter. I 
looked at Ward again, and he had thrown off his dread solemnity and was laughing 
also. Then I saw that I had been sold — that I had been made the victim of a 
swindle in the way of a string of plausibly worded sentences that didn't mean any- 
thing under the sun. Artemus Ward was one of the best fellows in the world, and 
one of the most companionable. It has been said that he was not fluent in conver- 
sation, but, with the above experience in my mind, I differ. 




VISITED St Louis lately, and on my 
way west, after changing cars at Terre 
Haute, Indiana, a mild, benevolent- 
looking gentleman of about forty-five, or 
may be fifty, came in at one of the way- 
stations and sat down beside me. We 
talked together pleasantly on various sub- 
jects for an hour, perhaps, and I found 
him exceedingly intelligent and entertain- 
ing. When he learned that I was from 
Washington, he immediately began to ask 
questions about various public men, and 
about Congressional affairs ; and I saw 
very shortly that I was conversing with a man who was perfectly familiar 
with the ins and outs of political life at the Capital, even to the ways and) 

287 



288 MARA' TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

manners, and customs of procedure of Senators and Representatives in the 

Chambers of the National Legislature. Presently two men halted near us for a 

single moment, and one said to the other : 

"Harris, if you'll do that for me, I'll never forget you, my boy." 

My new comrade's eyes lighted pleasantly. The words had touched upon a 

happy memory, I thought. Then his face settled into thoughtfulness — almost into 

gloom. He turned to me and said, "Let me tell you a story; let me give you a 

secret chapter of my life — a chapter that has never been referred to by me since its 

events transpired. Listen patiently, and promise that you will not interrupt me." 

I said I would not, and he related the following strange adventure, speaking 

sometimes with animation, sometimes with melancholy, but always with feeling 

and earnestness. 

The Stranger's Narrative. 

"On the 19th of December, 1853, I started from St. Louis on the evening train 
bound for Chicago. There were only twenty-four passengers, all told. There 
were no ladies and no children. We were in excellent spirits, and pleasant 
acquaintanceships were soon formed. The journey bade fair to be a happy one; 
and no individual in the party, I think, had even the vaguest presentiment of the 
horrors we were soon to undergo. 

"At 11 p. m. it began to snow hard. Shortly after leaving the small village of 
Welden, we entered upon that tremendous prairie solitude that stretches its leagues 
on leagues of houseless dreariness far away towards the Jubilee Settlements. The 
winds, unobstructed by trees or hills, or even vagrant rocks, whistled fiercely across 
the level desert, driving the falling snow before it like spray from the crested waves 
of a stormy sea. The snow was deepening fast; and we knew, by the diminished 
speed of the train, that the engine was ploughing through it with steadily increasing 
difficulty. Indeed, it almost came to a dead halt sometimes, in the midst of great 
drifts that piled themselves like colossal graves across the track. Conversation 
began to flag. Cheerfulness gave place to grave concern. The possibility of being 
imprisoned in the snow, on the bleak prairie, fifty miles from any house, presented 
itself to every mind, and extended its depressing influence over every spirit. 

" At two o'clock in the morning I was aroused out of an uneasy slumber by the 



CANNIBALISM IN THE CARS. 289 

ceasing of all motion about me. The appalling truth flashed upon me instantly — 
we were captives in a snow-drift ! ' All hands to the rescue ! ' Every man sprang 
to obey. Out into the wild night, the pitchy darkness, the billowy snow, the 
driving storm, every soul leaped, with the consciousness that a moment lost now 
might bring destruction to us all. Shovels, hands, boards — anything, everything 
that could displace snow, was brought into instant requisition. It was a weird 
picture, that small company of frantic men fighting the banking snows, half in the 
blackest shadow and half in the angry light of the locomotive's reflector. 

" One short hour sufficed to prove the utter uselessness of our efforts. The storm 
barricaded the track with a dozen drifts while we dug one away. And worse than 
this, it was discovered that the last grand charge the engine had made upon the 
enemy had broken the fore-and-aft shaft of the driving-wheel ! With a free track 
before us we should still have been helpless. We entered the car wearied with 
labor, and very sorrowful. We gathered about the stoves, and gravely canvassed 
our situation. We had no provisions whatever — in this lay our chief distress. We 
could not freeze, for there was a good supply of wood in the tender. This was our 
only comfort. The discussion ended at last in accepting the disheartening decision 
of the conductor, viz., that it would be death for any man to attempt to travel fifty 
miles on foot through snow like that. We could not send for help ; and even 
if we could, it could not come. We must submit, and await, as patiently as we 
might, succor or starvation ! I think the stoutest heart there felt a momentary 
chill when those words were uttered. 

" Within the hour conversation subsided to a low murmur here and there about 
the car, caught fitfully between the rising and falling of the blast ; the lamps grew 
dim; and the majority of the castaways settled themselves among the flickering 
shadows to think — to forget the present, if they could — to sleep, if they might. 

" The eternal night — it surely seemed eternal to us — wore its lagging hours away 
at last, and the cold grey dawn broke in the east. As the light grew stronger the 
passengers began to stir and give signs of life, one after another, and each in turn 
pushed his slouched hat up from his forehead, stretched his stiffened limbs, and 
glanced out at the windows upon the cheerless prospect. It was cheerless indeed! 
— not a living thing visible anywhere, not a human habitation ; nothing but a vast 
19 



290 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

white desert ; uplifted sheets of snow drifting hither and thither before the wind — 
a world of eddying flakes shutting out the firmament above. 

"All day we moped about the cars, saying little, thinking much. Another linger- 
ing dreary night — and hunger. 

"Another dawning — another day of silence, sadness, wasting hunger, hopeless 
watching for succor that could not come. A night of restless slumber, filled with 
dreams of feasting — wakings distressed with the gnawings of hunger. 

"The fourth day came and went — and the fifth ! Five days of dreadful imprison- 
ment ! A savage hunger looked out at every eye. There was in it a sign of awful 
import — the foreshadowing of a something that was vaguely shaping itself in every 
heart — a something which no tongue dared yet to frame into words. 

" The sixth day passed — the seventh dawned upon as gaunt and haggard and 
hopeless a company of men as ever stood in the shadow of death. It must out now \ 
That thing which had been growing up in every heart was ready to leap from every 
lip at last! Nature had been taxed to the utmost — she must yield. Richard H. 
Gaston, of Minnesota, tall, cadaverous, and pale, rose up. All knew what was 
coming. All prepared — every emotion, every semblance of excitement was 
smothered — only a calm, thoughtful seriousness appeared in the eyes that were 
lately so wild. 

"'Gentlemen, — It cannot be delayed longer! The time is at hand! We must 
determine which of us shall die to furnish food for the rest ! ' 

"Mr. John J. Williams, of Illinois, rose and said: 'Gentlemen, — I nominate 
the Rev. James Sawyer, of Tennessee.' 

"Mr.WM. R. Adams, of Indiana, said : 'I nominate Mr. Daniel Slote, of New York/ 

"Mr. Charles J. Langdon: 'I nominate Mr. Samuel A. Bowen, of St. Louis.* 

" Mr. Slote : ' Gentlemen, — I desire to decline in favor of Mr. John A. Van 
Nostrand, Jun., of New Jersey.' 

" Mr. Gaston : ' If there be no objection, the gentleman's desire will be acceded 
to.' 

"Mr. Van Nostrand objecting, the resignation of Mr. Slote was rejected. The 
resignations of Messrs. Sawyer and Bowen were also offered, and refused upon the 
same grounds. 



CANNIBALISM IN THE CARS. 291 

"Mr. A. L. Bascom, of Ohio: 'I move that the nominations now close, and that 
the House proceed to an election by ballot.' 

"Mr. Sawyer: 'Gentlemen, — I protest earnestly against these proceedings. 
They are, in every way, irregular and unbecoming. I must beg to move that they 
be dropped at once, and that we elect a chairman of the meeting and proper officers 
to assist him, and then we can go on with the business before us understandingly.' 

"Mr. Bell, of Iowa: 'Gentlemen, — I object. This is no time to stand upon 
forms and ceremonious observances. For more than seven days we have been 
without food. Every moment we lose in idle discussion increases our distress. I 
am satisfied with the nominations that have been made — every gentleman present 
is, I believe — and I, for one, do not see why we should not proceed at once to elect 
one or more of them. I wish to offer a resolution ' 

"Mr. Gaston: 'It would be objected to, and have to lie over one day under 
the rules, thus bringing about the very delay you wish to avoid. The gentleman 
from New Jersey ' 

"Mr. Van Nostrand : 'Gentlemen, — I am a stranger among you; I have not 
sought the distinction that has been conferred upon me, and I feel a delicacy ' 

"Mr. Morgan, of Alabama (interrupting): 'I move the previous question.' 

"The motion was carried, and further debate shut off, of course. The motion 
to elect officers was passed, and under it Mr. Gaston was chosen chairman, Mr. 
Blake secretary, Messrs. Holcomb, Dyer, and Baldwin, a committee on nominations, 
and Mr. R. M. Howland, purveyor, to assist the committee in making selections. 

" A recess of half an hour was then taken, and some little caucussing followed. 
At the sound of the gavel the meeting reassembled, and the committee reported in 
favor of Messrs. George Ferguson, of Kentucky, Lucien Herrman, of Louisiana, 
and W. Messick, of Colorado, as candidates. The report was accepted. 

" Mr. Rogers, of Missouri : ' Mr. President, — The report being properly before 
the House now, I move to amend it by substituting for the name of Mr. Herrman 
that of Mr. Lucius Harris, of St. Louis, who is well and honorably known to us all. 
I do not wish to be understood as casting the least reflection upon the high char- 
acter and standing of the gentleman from Louisiana — far from it. I respect and 
esteem him as much as any gentleman here present possibly can; but none of us 



*9 2 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

can be blind to the fact that he has lost more flesh during the week that we have 
lain here than any among us — none of us can be blind to the fact that the com- 
mittee has been derelict in its duty, either through negligence or a graver fault, in 
thus offering for our suffrages a gentleman who, however pure his own motives may 
be, has really less nutriment in him ' 

" The Chair : ' The gentleman from Missouri will take his seat. The Chair 
cannot allow the integrity of the Committee to be questioned save by the regular 
course, under the rules. What action will the House take upon the gentleman's 
motion ? ' 

"Mr. Halliday, of Virginia: 'I move to further amend the report by substi- 
tuting Mr. Harvey Davis, of Oregon, for Mr. Messick. It may be urged by 
gentlemen that the hardships and privations of a frontier life have rendered Mr. 
Davis tough; but, gentlemen, is this a time to cavil at toughness? is this a time to 
t>e fastidious concerning trifles? is this a time to dispute about matters of paltry 
significance? No, gentlemen, bulk is what we desire — substance, weight, bulk — 
these are the supreme requisites now — not talent, not genius, not education. I 
•insist upon my motion.' 

" Mr. Morgan (excitedly) : ' Mr. Chairman, — I do most strenuously object to 
this amendment. The gentleman from Oregon is old, and furthermore is bulky 
only in bone — not in flesh. I ask the gentleman from Virginia if it is soup we 
want instead of solid sustenance ? if he would delude us with shadows? if he would 
mock our suffering with an Oregonian spectre ? I ask him if he can look upon the 
anxious faces around him, if he can gaze into our sad eyes, if he can listen to the 
beating of our expectant hearts, and still thrust this famine-stricken fraud upon us? 
I ask him if he can think of our desolate state, of our past sorrows, of our dark 
future, and still unpityingly foist upon us this wreck, this ruin, this tottering swindle, 
this gnarled and blighted and sapless vagabond from Oregon's inhospitable shores? 
Never ! ' (Applause.) 

"The amendment was put to vote, after a fiery debate, and lost. Mr. Harris was 
substituted on the first amendment. The balloting then began. Five ballots were 
held without a choice. On the sixth, Mr. Harris was elected, all voting for him 
but himself. It was then moved that his election should be ratified by acclamation, 
which was lost, in consequence of his again voting against himself. 



CANNIBALISM IN THE CARS. 293 

" Mr. Radway moved that the House now take up the remaining candidates, and 
go into an election for breakfast. This was carried. 

" On the first ballot there was a tie, half the members favoring one candidate on 
account of his youth, and half favoring the other on account of his superior size. 
The President gave the casting vote for the latter, Mr. Messick. This decision 
created considerable dissatisfaction among the friends of Mr. Ferguson, the defeated 
candidate, and there was some talk of demanding a new ballot; but in the midst 
of it, a motion to adjourn was carried, and the meeting broke up at once. 

"The preparations for supper diverted the attention of the Ferguson faction from 
the discussion of their grievance for a long time, and then, when they would have 
taken it up again, the happy announcement that Mr. Harris was ready, drove all 
thought of it to the winds. 

"We improvised tables by propping up the backs of car-seats, and sat down with 
hearts full of gratitude to the finest supper that had blessed our vision for seven 
torturing days. How changed we were from what we had been a few short hours 
before ! Hopeless, sad-eyed misery, hunger, feverish anxiety, desperation, then — 
thankfulness, serenity, joy too deep for utterance now. That I know was the 
cheeriest hour of my eventful life. The wind howled, and blew the snow wildly 
about our prison-house, but they were powerless to distress us any more. I liked 
Harris. He might have been better. done, perhaps, but I am free to say that no 
man ever agreed with me better than Harris, or afforded me so large a degree of 
satisfaction. Messick was very well, though rather high-flavored, but for genuine 
nutritiousness and delicacy of fibre, give me Harris. Messick had his good points 
— I will not attempt to deny it, nor do I wish to do it — but he was no more fitted 
for breakfast than a mummy would be, sir — not a bit. Lean ? — why, bless me ! — 
and tough ? Ah, he was very tough ! You could not imagine it, — you could never 
imagine anything like it.'' 

" Do you mean to tell me that " 

" Do not interrupt me, please. After breakfast we elected a man by the name of 
Walker, from Detroit, for supper. He was very good. I wrote his wife so after- 
wards. He was worthy of all praise. I shall always remember Walker. He was 
a little rare, but very good. And then the next morning we had Morgan, of Ala- 
bama, for breakfast. He was one of the finest men I ever sat down to, — handsome 



294 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

educated, refined, spoke several languages fluently — a perfect gentleman — he was 
a perfect gentleman, and singularly juicy. For supper we had that Oregon patri- 
arch, and he was a fraud, there is no question about it — old, scraggy, tough, nobody 
can picture the reality. I finally said, gentlemen, you can do as you like, but I 
will wait for another election. And Grimes, of Illinois, said, * Gentlemen, / will 
wait also. When you elect a man that has something to recommend him, I shall be 
glad to join you again.' It soon became evident that there was general dissatisfac- 
tion with Davis, of Oregon, and so, to preserve the good-will that had prevailed so 
pleasantly since we had had Harris, an election was called, and the result of it was 
that Baker, of Georgia, was chosen. He was splendid ! Well, well — after that we 
had Doolittle and Hawkins, and McElroy (there was some complaint about McEl- 
roy, because he was uncommonly short and thin), and Penrod, and two Smiths, and 
Bailey (Bailey had a wooden leg, which was clear loss, but he was otherwise good), 
and an Indian boy, and an organ grinder, and a gentleman by the name of Buck- 
minster — a poor stick of a vagabond that wasn't any good for company and no 
account for breakfast. We were glad we got him elected before relief came." 

"And so the blessed relief did come at last?" 

"Yes, it came one bright, sunny morning, just after election. John Murphy was 
the choice, and there never was a better, I am willing to testify; but John Murphy 
came home with us, in the train that came to succor us, and lived to marry the 
widow Harris " 

" Relict of " 

" Relict of our first choice. He married her, and is happy and respected and 
prosperous yet. Ah, it was like a novel, sir — it was like a romance. This is my 
stopping-place, sir; I must bid you good-by. Any time that you can make it con- 
venient to tarry a day or two with me, I shall be glad to have you. I like you, sir; 
I have conceived an affection for you. I could like you as well as I liked Harris 
himself, sir. Good day, sir, and a pleasant journey." 

He was gone. I never felt so stunned, so distressed, so bewildered in my life. 
But in my soul I was glad he was gone. With all his gentleness of manner and his 
soft voice, I shuddered whenever he turned his hungry eye upon me ; and when I 
heard that I had achieved his perilous affection, and that I stood almost with the 
late Harris in his esteem, my heart fairly stood still ! 



CANNIBALISM IN THE CARS. 295 



I was bewildered beyond description. I did not doubt his word ; I could not 
question a single item in a statement so stamped with the earnestness of truth as 
his; but its dreadful details overpowered me, and threw my thoughts into hopeless 
confusion. I saw the conductor looking at me. I said, " Who is that man ?" 

" He was a member of Congress once, and a good one. But he got caught in a 
snowdrift in the cars, and like to been starved to death. He got so frost-bitten 
and frozen up generally, and used up for want of something to eat, that he was sick 
and out of his head two or three months afterwards. He is all right now, only he 
is a monomaniac, and when he gets on that old subject he never stops till he has 
eat up that whole car-load of people he talks about. He would have finished the 
crowd by this time, only he had to get out here. He has got their names as pat as 
A, B, C. When he gets them all eat up but himself, he always says : — ' Then the 
hour for the usual election for breakfast having arrived, and there being no oppo- 
sition, I was duly elected, after which, there being no objections offered, I resigned. 
Thus I am here.' " 

I felt inexpressibly relieved to know that I had only been listening to the harm- 
less vagaries of a madman instead of the genuine experiences of a bloodthirsty- 
cannibal. 




T 



HERE was a fellow traveling 
around in that country," said 
Mr. Nickerson, "with a moral- 
religious show — a sort of scriptural 
panorama — and he hired a wooden^ 
headed old slab to play the piano for 
him. After the first night's per- 
formance the showman says — 

"'My friend, you seem to know 
pretty much all the tunes there are, 
and you worry along first-rate. But 
then, don't you notice that some- 
times last night the piece you hap- 
pened to be playing was a little rough on the proprieties, so to speak— didn't 
seem to jibe with the general gait of the picture that was passing at the time, 

?q6 



THE SCRIPTURAL PANORAMIST. 297 

as it were — was a little foreign to the subject, you know — as if you didn't either 
trump or follow suit, you understand ? ' 

" ' Well, no/ the fellow said; 'he hadn't noticed, but it might be; he had 
played along just as it came handy.' 

" So they put it up that the simple old dummy was to keep his eye on the pano- 
rama after that, and as soon as a stunning picture was reeled out he was to fit 
it to a dot with a piece of music that would help the audience to get the idea of 
the subject, and warm them up like a camp-meeting revival. That sort of thing 
would corral their sympathies, the showman said. 

"There was a big audience that night — mostly middle-aged and old people 
who belong to the church, and took a strong interest in Bible matters, and the 
balance were pretty much young bucks and heifers — they always come out 
strong on panoramas, you know, because it gives them a chance to taste one 
another's complexions in the dark. 

" Well, the showman began to swell himself up for his lecture, and the old 
mud-dobber tackled the piano and ran his fingers up and down once or twice 
to see that she was all right, and the fellows behind the curtain commenced to 
grind out the panorama. The showman balanced his weight on his right foot, 
and propped his hands over his hips, and flung his eyes over his shoulder at 
the scenery, and said — 

" ' Ladies and gentlemen, the painting now before you illustrates the beautiful 
and touching parable of the Prodigal Son. Observe the happy expression just 
breaking over the features of the poor, suffering youth — so worn and weary 
with his long march; note also the ecstasy beaming from the uplifted counte- 
nance of the aged father, and the joy that sparkles in the eyes of the excited 
group of youths and maidens, and seems ready to burst into the welcoming 
chorus from their lips. The lesson, my friends, is as solemn and instructive as 
the story is tender and beautiful.' 

" The mud-dobber was all ready, and when the second speech was finished, 
struck up — 

" ' Oh, we'll all get blind drunk, 

When Johnny comes marching home ! ' 

"Some of the people giggled, and some groaned a little. The showman 



298 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

couldn't say a word ; he looked at the pianist sharp, but he was all lovely and 
serene — he didn't know there was anything out of gear. 

" The panorama moved on, and the showman drummed up his grit and started 
in fresh. 

" ' Ladies and gentlemen, the fine picture now unfolding itself to your gaze 
exhibits one of the most notable events in Bible history — our Saviour and His 
disciples upon the Sea of Galilee. How grand, how awe-inspiring are the 
reflections which the subject invokes? What sublimity of faith is revealed to 
us in this lesson from the sacred writings? The Saviour rebukes the angry 
waves, and walks securely upon the bosom of the deep ! ' 

" All around the house they were whispering, ' Oh, how lovely, how beautiful ! ' 
and the orchestra let himself out again — 

" ' A life on the ocean wave, 

And a home on the rolling deep ! ' 

" There was a good deal of honest snickering turned on this time, and consid- 
erable groaning, and one or two old deacons got up and went out. The show- 
man grated his teeth, and cursed the piano man to himself; but the fellow sat 
there like a knot on a log, and seemed to think he was doing first-rate. 

" After things got quiet the showman thought he would make one more stagger 
at it any way, though his confidence was beginning to get mighty shaky. The 
supes started the panorama grinding along again, and he says — 

" ' Ladies and gentlemen, this exquisite painting represents the raising of 
Lazarus from the dead by our Saviour. The subject has been handled with 
marvelous skill by the artist, and such touching sweetness and tenderness of 
expression has he thrown into it that I have known peculiarly sensitive persons 
to be even affected to tears by looking at it. Observe the half-confused, half- 
inquiring look upon the countenance of the awakened Lazarus. Observe, also, 
the attitude and expression of the Saviour, who takes him gently by the sleeve 
of his shroud with one hand, while He points with the other towards the 
distant city.' 

" Before anybody could get off an opinion in the case the innocent old ass 
at the piano struck up — 



THE SCRIPTURAL PANORAMIST. 299 



"'Come rise up, William Ri-i-ley, 
And go along with me ! ' 

"Whe-ew! All 'the solemn old flats got up in a huff to go, and everybody 
else laughed till the windows rattled. 

"The showman went down and grabbed the orchestra and shook him up and 
says — 

" ' That lets you out, you know, you chowder-headed old clam : Go to the 
door-keeper and get your money, and cut your stick — vamose the ranche ! 
Ladies and gentlemen, circumstances over which I have no control compel me 
prematurely to dismiss the house/ " 




IT is a good thing, perhaps, to 
write for the amusement of the 
public, but it is a far higher and 
nobler thing to write for their in- 
struction, their profit, their actual 
and tangible benefit. The latter is 
the sole object of this article. If it 
prove the means of restoring to 
health one solitary sufferer among 
my race, of lighting up once more 
the fire of hope and joy in his faded 
eyes, of bringing back to his dead 
heart again the quick, generous 
impulses of other days, I shall be 
amply rewarded for my labor ; my 
soul will be permeated with the sacred delight a Christian feels when he has 
done a good, unselfish deed. 

300 



CURING A COLD. 301 



Having led a pure and blameless life, I am justified in believing that no man 
who knows me will reject the suggestions I am about to make, out of fear that 
I am trying to deceive him. Let the public do itself the honor to read my 
experience in doctoring a cold, as herein set forth, and then follow in my 
footsteps. 

When the White House was burned in Virginia City, I lost my home, my 
happiness, my constitution, and my trunk. The loss of the two first-named 
articles was a matter of no great consequence, since a home without a mother 
or a sister, or a distant young female relative in it, to remind you, by putting 
your soiled linen out of sight and taking your boots down off the mantel-piece, 
that there are those who think about you and care for you, is easily obtained. 
And I cared nothing for the loss of my happiness, because not being a poet, it 
could not be possible that melancholy would abide with me long. But to lose 
a good constitution and a better trunk were serious misfortunes. On the day 
of the fire my constitution succumbed to a severe cold, caused by undue exertion 
in getting ready to do something. I suffered to no purpose, too, because the 
plan T was figuring at for the extinguishing of the fire was so elaborate that I 
never got it completed until the middle of the following week. 

The first time I began to sneeze, a friend told me to go and bathe my feet in 
hot water and go to bed. I did so. Shortly afterwards, another friend advised 
me to get up and take a cold shower-bath. I did that also. Within the hour, 
another friend assured me that it was policy to "feed a cold and starve a fever." 
I had both. So I thought it best to fill myself up for the cold, and then keep 
dark and let the fever starve awhile. 

In a case of this kind, I seldom do things by halves; I ate pretty heartily : I 
conferred my custom upon a stranger who had just opened his restaurant that 
morning: he waited near me in respectful silence until I had finished feeding 
my cold, when he inquired if the people about Virginia City were much afflicted 
with colds? I told him I thought they were. He then went out and took in 
his sign. • 

I started down toward the office, and on the way encountered another bosom 
friend, who told me that a quart of salt water, taken warm, would come as near 



302 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



curing a cold as anything in the world. I hardly thought I had room for it, 
but I tried it anyhow. The result was surprising. I believed I had thrown up 
my immortal soul. 

Now, as I am giving my experience only for the benefit of those who are 
troubled with the distemper I am writing about, I feel that they will see the 
propriety of my cautioning them against following such portions of it as proved 
inefficient with me, and acting upon this conviction, I warn them against warm 
salt water. It may be a good enough remedy, but I think it is too severe. If I 



had another cold 
there were no 
to take either an 
quart of warm salt 
take my chances 
After the storm 
r agi ng in my 
sided, and no more 
happening along, 
ing handkerchiefs 
them to atoms, as 
torn in the early 
until I came across 
just arrived from 
and who said she 
of the country 




in the head, and 
course left me but 
earthquake or a 
water, I would 
on the earthquake, 
which had been 
stomach had sub- 
good Samaritans 
I went oh borrow- 
again and blowing 
had been my cus- 
stages of my cold, 
a lady who had 
over the plains, 
had lived in a part 
where doctors 



were scarce, and had from necessity acquired considerable skill in the treatment 
of simple "family complaints." I knew she must have had much experience, 
for she appeared to be a hundred and fifty years old. 

She mixed a decoction composed of molasses, aquafortis, turpentine, and 
various other drugs, and instructed me to take a wine-glass full of it every fif- 
teen minutes. I never took but one dose; that was enough ; it robbed me of all 
moral principle, and awoke every unworthy impulse of my nature. Under its 
malign influence my brain conceived miracles of meanness, but my hands were 



CURING A COLD. 303 



too feeble to execute them ; at that time, had it not been that my strength had 
surrendered to a succession of assaults from infallible remedies for my cold, I 
am satisfied that I would have tried to rob the graveyard. Like most other 
people, I often feel mean, and act accordingly ; but until I took that medicine I 
had never revelled in such supernatural depravity, and felt proud of it. At the 
end of two days I was ready to go to doctoring again. I took a few more 
unfailing remedies, and finally drove my cold from my head to my lungs. 

I got to coughing incessantly, and my voice fell below zero ; I conversed in a 
thundering base, two octaves below my natural tone ; I could only compass my 
regular nightly repose by coughing myself down to a state of utter exhaustion, 
and then the moment I began to talk in my sleep, my discordant voice woke me 
up again. 

My case grew more and more serious every day. Plain gin was recommended ; 
I took it. Then gin and molasses; I took that also. Then gin and onions; I 
added the onions, and took all three. I detected no particular result, however, 
except that I had acquired a breath like a buzzard's. 

. I found I had to travel for my health. I went to Lake Bigler with my repor- 
torial comrade, Wilson. It is gratifying to me to reflect that we traveled in 
considerable style; we went in the Pioneer coach, and my friend took all his 
baggage with him, consisting of two excellent silk handkerchiefs and a daguer- 
reotype of his grandmother. We sailed and hunted and fished and danced all 
day, and I doctored my cough all night. By managing in this way, I made out 
to improve every hour in the twenty-four. But my disease continued to grow 
worse. 

A sheet-bath was recommended. I had never refused a remedy yet, and it 
seemed poor policy to commence then; therefore I determined to take a sheet- 
bath, notwithstanding I had no idea what sort of arrangement it was. It was 
administered at midnight, and the weather was very frosty. My breast and back 
were bared, and a sheet (there appeared to be a thousand yards of it) soaked in 
ice-water, was wound around me until I resembled a swab for a Columbiad. 

It is a cruel expedient. When the chilly rag touches one's warm flesh, it 
makes him start with sudden violence, and gasp for breath just as men do in the 



3°4 



MARK TV/AIN'S SKETCHES. 



death agony. It froze the marrow in my bones, and stopped the beating of my 
heart. I thought my time had come. 

Young Wilson said the circumstance reminded him of an anecdote about a 
negro who was being baptized, and who slipped from the parson's grasp, and 
came near being drowned. He floundered around, though, and finally rose up 
out of the water considerably strangled, and furiously angry, and started ashore 
at once, spouting water like a whale, and remarking, with great asperity, that 
"one o' dese days some genTman's nigger gwyne to get killed wid jis' such 

dis!" 



dam foolishness as 
Never takea 
Next to meeting a 
who, for reasons 
self, don't see you 
you, and don't 
she does see you, 
comfortable thing 
But, as I was 
sheet-bath fa i led 
a lady friend rec- 
plication of a mus- 
breast. I believe 
cured me effectual- 
been for young 
went to bed, I put 




sheet-bath — never, 
lady acquaintance, 
best known to her- 
when she looks at 
know you when 
it is the most un- 
in the world, 
saying, when the 
to cure my cough, 
ommended the ap- 
tard plaster to my 
that would have 
ly, if it had not 
Wilson. When I 
my mustard plas- 



ter — which was a very gorgeous one, eighteen inches square — where I could 
reach it when I was ready for it. But young Wilson got hungry in the night, 
and — here is food for the imagination. 

After sojourning a week at Lake Bigler, I went to Steamboat Springs, and 
beside the steam baths, I took. a lot of the vilest medicines that were ever con- 
cocted. They would have cured me, but I had to go back to Virginia City, 
where, notwithstanding the variety of new remedies I absorbed every day, I 
managed to aggravate my disease by carelessness and undue exposure. 



CURING A COLD. 



3°5 



I finally concluded to visit San Francisco, and the first day I got there, a lady 
at the hotel told me to drink a quart of whisky every twenty-four hours, and a 
friend up town recommended precisely the same course. Each advised me to 
take a quart; that made half a gallon. I did it, and still live. 

Now, with the kindest motives in the world, I offer for the consideration of 
consumptive patients the variegated course of treatment I have lately gone 
through. Let them try it : if it don't cure, it can't more than kill them. 




20 





A CURIOUS PLEASURE 
EXCURSION.* 

[" We have received the following adver- 
tisement, but, inasmuch as it concerns a 
matter of deep and general interest, we feel 
fully justified in inserting it in our reading 
columns. We are confident that our conduct 
in this regard needs only explanation, not 
apology. — Ed. N. Y. Herald."] 



T 



ADVERTISEMENT. 
iHIS is to inform the public 
that in connection with Mr. 
Barnum I have leased the 
comet for a term of years ; and I 
desire also to solicit the public pat- 
ronage in favor of a beneficial en- 
terprise which we have hi vnew. 
We propose to fit up comfortable, and even luxurious, accommodations in the 



* Published at the time of the " Comet Scare" in the summer of 1874. 



A CURIOUS PLEASURE EXCURSION. 307 

comet for as many persons as will honor us with their patronage, and make an 
extended excursion among the heavenly bodies. We shall prepare 1,000,000 state 
rooms in the tail of the comet (with hot and cold water, gas, looking glass, 
parachute, umbrella, etc., in each), and shall construct more if we meet with a 
sufficiently generous encouragement. We shall have billiard rooms, card rooms, 
music rooms, bowling alleys and many spacious theatres and free libraries; and on 
the main deck we propose to have a driving park, with upwards of 10,000 miles of 
roadway in it. We shall publish daily newspapers also. 

DEPARTURE OF THE COMET. 

The comet will leave New York at ten P. M. on the 20th inst., and therefore it 
will be desirable that the passengers be on board by eight at the latest, to avoid 
confusion in getting under way. It is not known whether passports will be necessary 
or not, but it is deemed best that passengers provide them, and so guard against 
all contingencies. No dogs will be allowed on board. This rule has been made 
in deference to the existing state of feeling regarding these animals and will be 
strictly adhered to. The safety of the passengers will in all ways be jealously 
looked to. A substantial iron railing will be put up all around the comet, and no 
one will be allowed to go to the edge and look over unless accompanied by either 
my partner or myself. 

THE POSTAL SERVICE 

will be of the completest character. Of course the telegraph, and the telegraph 
only, will be employed, consequently, friends occupying state-rooms, 20,000,000 
and even 30,000,000 miles apart, will be able to send a message and receive a reply 
inside of eleven days. Night messages will be half rate. The whole of this vast 
postal system will be under the personal superintendence of Mr. Hale, of Maine. 
Meals served at all hours. Meals served in staterooms charged extra. ' 

Hostility is not apprehended from any great planet, but we have thought it best 
to err on the safe side, and therefore have provided a proper number of mortars, 
siege guns and boarding pikes. History shows that small, isolated communities, 
such as the people of remote islands, are prone to be hostile to strangers, and so 
the same may be the case with 

THE INHABITANTS OF STARS 

of the tenth or twentieth magnitude. We shall in no case wantonly offend the 



308 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

people of any star, but shall treat all alike with urbanity and kindliness, never 
conducting ourselves toward an asteroid after- a fashion which we could not venture 
to assume toward Jupiter or Saturn. I repeat that we shall not wantonly offend 
any star; but at the same time we shall promptly resent any injury that may be 
done us, or any insolence offered us, by parties or governments residing in any star 
in the firmament. Although averse to the shedding of blood, we shall still hold 
this course rigidly and fearlessly, not only toward single stars, but toward constel- 
lations. We shall hope to leave a good impression of America behind us in every 
nation we visit, from Venus to Uranus. And, at all events, if we cannot inspire 
love we shall, at least, compel respect for our country wherever we go. We shall 
take with us, free of charge, 

A GREAT FORCE OF MISSIONARIES, 

and shed the true light upon all the celestial orbs which, physically aglow, are yet 
morally in darkness. Sunday-schools will be established wherever practicable. 
Compulsory education will also be introduced. 

The comet will visit Mars first, and then proceed to Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and 
Saturn. Parties connected with the government of the District of Columbia and 
with the former city government of New York, who may desire to inspect the rings, 
will be allowed time and every facility. Every star of prominent magnitude will 
be visited, and time allowed for excursions to points of interest inland. 

THE DOG STAR 

has been stricken from the programme. Much time will be spent in the Great 
Bear, and, indeed, of every constellation of importance. So, also, with the Sun 
and Moon and the Milky Way, otherwise the Gulf Stream of the skies. Clothing 
suitable for wear in the sun should be provided. Our programme has been so 
arranged that we shall seldom go more than 100,000,000 of miles at a time without 
stopping at some star. This will necessarily make the stoppages frequent and 
preserve the interest of the tourist. Baggage checked through to any point on the 
route. Parties desiring to make only a part of the proposed tour, and thus save 
expense, may stop over at any star they choose and wait for the return voyage. 

After visiting all the most celebrated stars and constellations in our system 
and personally inspecting the remotest sparks that even the most powerful 



A CURIOUS PLEASURE EXCURSION. 309 



telescope can now detect in the firmament, we shall proceed with good heart upon 

A STUPENDOUS VOYAGE 

of discovery among the countless whirling worlds that make turmoil in the mighty 
wastes of space that stretch their solemn solitudes, their unimaginable vastness 
billions upon billions of miles away beyond the farthest verge of telescopic vision, 
till by comparison the little sparkling vault we used to gaze at on Earth shall seem 
like a remembered phosphorescent flash of spangles which some tropical voyager's 
prow stirred into life for a single instant, and which ten thousand miles of phos- 
phorescent seas and tedious lapse of time had since diminished to an incident 
utterly trivial in his recollection. Children occupying seats at the first table will 
be charged full fare. 

FIRST CLASS FARE 

from the Earth to Uranus, including visits to the Sun and Moon and all the principal 
planets on the route, will be charged at the low rate of $2 for every 50,000,000 
miles of actual travel. A great reduction will be made where parties wish to make 
the round trip. This comet is new and in thorough repair and is now on her first 
voyage. She is confessedly the fastest on the line. She makes 20,000,000 miles a 
day, with her present facilities; but, with a picked American crew and good weather, 
we are confident we can get 40,000,000 out of her. Still, we shall never push 
her to a dangerous speed, and we shall rigidly prohibit racing with other comets. 
Passengers desiring to diverge at any point or return will be transferred to other 
comets. We make close connections at all principal points with all reliable lines. 
Safety can be depended upon. It is not to be denied that the heavens are infested 
with 

OLD RAMSHACKLE COMETS 

that have not been inspected or overhauled in 10,000 years, and which ought long 
ago to have been destroyed or turned into hail barges, but with these we have no 
connection whatever. Steerage passengers not allowed abaft the main hatch. 

Complimentary round trip tickets have been tendered to General Butler, Mr. 
Shepherd, Mr. Richardson and other eminent gentlemen, whose public services 
have entitled them to the rest and relaxation of a voyage of this kind. Tames 
desiring to make the round trip will have extra accommodation. The enti » voyage 



310 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

will be completed, and the passengers landed in New York again on the 14th of 
December, 1991. This is, at least, forty years quicker than any other comet can 
do it in. Nearly all the back pay members contemplate making the round trip 
with us in case their constituents will allow them a holiday. Every harmless 
amusement will be allowed on board, but no pools permitted on the run of the 
comet — no gambling of any kind. All fixed stars will be respected by us, but 
such stars as seem to need fixing we shall fix. If it makes trouble we shall be 
sorry, but firm. 

Mr. Coggia having leased his comet to us, she will no longer be called by his 
name but by my partner's. N. B. — Passengers by paying double fare will be 
entitled to a share in all the new stars, suns, moons, comets, meteors and magazines 
of thunder and lightning we may discover. Patent medicine people will take 
notice that 

WE CARRY BULLETIN BOARDS 

and a paint brush along for use in the constellations, and are open to -terms. 
Cremationists are reminded that we are going straight to — some hot places — and 
are open to terms. To other parties our enterprise is a pleasure excursion, but 
individually we mean business. We shall fly our comet for all it is worth. 

FOR FURTHER PARTICULARS, 

or for freight or passage, apply on board, or to my partner, but not to me, since I 
do not take charge of the comet until she is under weigh. It is necessary, at a 
time like this, that my mind should not be burdened with small business details. 

Mark Twain. 





-■§Ji\ 



yWmt 





j£t, J, l ke-L/t^C 



RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR. 



A 



FEW months ago I was nomi- 
nated for Governor of the 
great State of New York, to 
run against Mr. John T. Smith and 
Mr. Blank J. Blank on an independ- 
ent ticket. I somehow felt that I 
had one prominent advantage over 
these gentlemen, and that was — good 
character. It was easy to see by the 
newspapers that if ever they had 
known what it was to bear a good 
name, that time had gone by. It 
was plain that in these latter years 
they had become familiar with all 
manner of shameful crimes. But at the very moment that I was exalting my 
advantage and joying in it in secret, there was a muddy undercurrent of 

311 



312 MARK 7 'WAIN'S SKETCHES. 

discomfort " riling " the deeps of my happiness, and that was — the having to 
hear my name bandied about in familiar connection with those of such people. 
I grew more and more disturbed. Finally I wrote my grandmother about it. 
Her answer came quick and sharp. She said — 

" You have never done one single thing in all your life to be ashamed of — not one. Look at the 
newspapers — look at them and comprehend what sort of characters Messrs. Smith and Blank are, 
and then see if you are willing to lower yourself to their level and enter a public canvass with, 
them." 

It was my very thought ! I did not sleep a single moment that night. But 
after all I could not recede. I was fully committed, and must go on with the 
fight. As I was looking listlessly over the papers at breakfast I came across 
this paragraph, and I may truly say I never was so confounded before. 

"PERJURY. — Perhaps, now that Mr. Mark Twain is before the people as a candidate for Gov- 
ernor, he will condescend to explain how he came to be convicted of perjury by thirty-four wit- 
nesses in Wakawak, Cochin China, in 1863, the intent of which perjury being to rob a poor native 
widow and her helpless family of a meagre plantain-patch, their only stay and support in their 
bereavement and desolation. Mr. Twain owes it to himself, as well as to the great people whose 
suffrages he asks., to clear this matter up. Will he do it ? " 

I thought I should burst with amazement! Such a cruel, heartless charge. I 
never had seen Cochin China! I never had heard of Wakawak! I didn't 
know a plantain-patch from a kangaroo ! I did not know what to do. I was 
crazed and helpless. I let the day slip away without doing anything at all. 
The next morning the same paper had this — nothing more: — 

" Significant. — Mr. Twain, it will be observed, is suggestively silent about the Cochin China 
perjury." 

[Mem. — During the rest of the campaign this paper never referred to me ia 
any other way than as "the infamous perjurer Twain."] 
Next came the Gazette, with this : — ■ 

" Wanted to Know. — Will the new candidate for Governor deign to explain to certain of his 
fellow-citizens (who are suffering to vote for him !) the little circumstance of his cabin-mates in 
Montana losing small valuables from time to time, until at last, these things having been invariably 
found on Mr. Twain's person or in his ' trunk ' (newspaper he rolled his traps in), they felt compelled 
to give him a friendly admonition for his own good, and so tarred and feathered him, and rode him 
on a rail, and then advised him to leave a permanent vacuum in the place he usually occupied in 
the camp. Will he do this?" 

Could anything be more deliberately malicious than that ? For I never was 
in Montana in my life. 



R UNNING FOR GO VERNOR. 3 1 3 

[After this, this journal customarily spoke of me as " Twain, the Montana 

Thief." 

I got to picking up papers apprehensively — much as one would lift a desired 

blanket which he had some idea might hare a rattlesnake under it. One day 

this met my eye : — 

" The Lie Nailed ! — By the sworn affidavits of Michael O'Flanagan, Esq., of the Five Points, 
and Mr. Snub Rafferty and Mr. Catty Mulligan, of Water Street, it is established that Mr. Mark 
Twain's vile statement that the lamented grandfather of our noble standard-bearer, Blank J. Blank, 
was hanged for highway robbery, is a brutal and gratuitous lie, without a shadow of foundation in 
fact. It is disheartening to virtuous men to see such shameful means resorted to to achieve political 
success as the attacking of the dead in their graves, and defiling their honored names with slander. 
When we think of the anguish this miserable falsehood must cause the innocent relatives and 
friends of the deceased, we are almost driven to incite an outraged and insulted public to summary 
and unlawful vengeance upon the traducer But no ! let us leave him to the agony of a lacerated 
conscience (though if passion should get the better of the public, and in its blind fury they should 
do the traducer bodily injury, it is but too obvious that no jury could convict and no court punish 
the perpetrators of the deed)." 

The ingenious closing sentence had the effect of moving me out of bed with 
despatch that night, and out at the back door also, while the " outraged and 
insulted public" surged in the front way, breaking furniture and windows in 
their righteous indignation as they came, and taking off such property as they 
could carry when they went. And yet I can lay my hand upon the Book and 
say that I never slandered Mr. Blank's grandfather. More: I had never even 
heard of him or mentioned him up to that day and date. 

[I will state, in passing, that the journal above quoted from always referred to 
me afterward as " Twain, the Body-Snatcher."] 

The next newspaper article that attracted my attention was the following : — 

" A Sweet Candidate. — Mr. Mark Twain, who was to make such a blighting speech at the mass 
meeting of the Independents last night, didn't come to time ! A telegram from his physician stated 
that he had been knocked down by a runaway team, and his leg broken in two places — sufferer 
lying in great agony, and so forth, and so forth, and a lot more bosh of the same sort. And the 
Independents tried hard to swallow the wretched subterfuge, and pretend that they did not know 
what was the real reason of the absence of the abandoned creature whom they denominate their 
standard-bearer. A certain man was seen to reel into Mr. Twain s hotel last night in a stats of beastly 
intoxication. It is the imperative duty of the Independents to prove that this besotted brute was 
not Mark Twain himself. We have them at last ! This is a case that admits of no shirking. The 
voice of the people demands in thunder-tones, ' Who was that man ?' " 

It was incredible, absolutely incredible, for a moment, that it was really my 
name that was coupled with this disgraceful suspicion. Three long years had 
passed over my head since I had tasted ale, beer, wine, or liquor of any kind. 



314 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 

[It shows what effect the times were having on me when I say that I saw 
myself confidently dubbed "Mr. Delirium Tremens Twain " in the next issue of 
that journal without a pang — notwithstanding I knew that with monotonous 
fidelity the paper would go on calling me so to the very end.] 

By this time anonymous letters were getting to be an important part of my 
mail matter. This form was common — 

" How about that old woman you kiked of your premisers which was beging. Pol Pry." 

And this — 

"There is things which you have done which is unbeknowens to anybody but me. You better 
trot out a few dols. to yours truly, or you'll hear thro' the papers from Handy Andy." 

This is about the idea. I could continue them till the reader was surfeited, 
if desirable. 

Shortly the principal Republican journal "convicted" me of wholesale 
bribery, and the leading Democratic paper " nailed " an aggravated case of 
blackmailing to me. 

[In this way I acquired two additional names: "Twain the Filthy Corruption- 
ist," and "Twain the Loathsome Embracer."] 

By this time there had grown to be such a clamor for an "answer" to all the 
dreadful charges that were laid to me that the editors and leaders of my party 
said it would be political ruin for me to remain silent any longer. As if to 
make their appeal the more imperative, the following appeared in one of the 
papers the very next day : — 

"Behold the Man ! —The independent candidate still maintains silence. Because he dare not 
speak. Every accusation against him has been amply proved, and they have been endorsed and 
re-endorsed by his own eloquent silence, till at this day he stands for ever convicted. Look upon 
your candidate, Independents ! Look upon the Infamous Perjurer! the Montana Thief! the Body- 
Snatcher ! Contemplate your incarnate Delirium Tremens ! your Filthy Corruptionist ! your 
Loathsome Embracer ! Gaze upon him — ponder him well — and then say if you can give your 
honest votes to a creature who has earned this dismal array of titles by his hideous crimes, and dares 
not open his mouth in denial of any one of them!" 

There was no possible way of getting out of it, and so in deep humiliation, I 
set about preparing to "answer" a mass of baseless charges and mean and 
wicked falsehoods. But I never finished the task, for the very next' morning a 
paper came out with a new horror, a fresh malignity, and seriously charged me 
with burning a lunatic asylum with all its inmates, because it obstructed the 



RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR. 



315 



view from my house. This threw me into a sort of panic. Then came the 
charge of poisoning my uncle to get his property, with an imperative demand 
that the grave should be opened. This drove me to the verge of distraction. 
On top of this I was accused of employing toothless and incompetent old rela- 
tives to prepare the food for the foundling hospital when I was warden. I was 
wavering — wavering. And at last, as a due and fitting climax to the shameless 
persecution that party rancor had inflicted upon me, nine little toddling children, 




of all shades of color and degrees of ragged ness, were taught to rush on to the 
platform at a public meeting, and clasp me around the legs and call me Pa ! 

I gave it up. I hauled down my colors and surrendered. I was not equal to 
the requirements of a Gubernatorial campaign in the State of New York, and 
so I sent in my withdrawal from the candidacy, and in bitterness of spirit signed 
it, " Truly yours, once a decent man, but now 

Mark Twain, I. P., M. T., B. S., D. T., F. C, and L. E." 




A MYSTERIOUS VISIT. 



THE first notice that was taken of me when I "settled down" recently, was by 
a gentleman who said he was an assessor, and connected with the U. S. 
Internal Revenue Department. I said I had never heard of his branch of 
business before, but I was very glad to see him all the same — would he sit down? 
He sat down. I did not know anything particular to say, and yet I felt that people 
who have arrived at the dignity of keeping house must be conversational, must be 
easy and sociable in company. So, in default of anything else to say, I asked him 

if he was opening his shop in our neighborhood ? 

316 



A MYSTERIOUS VISIT. 317 



He said he was. [I did not wish to appear ignorant, but I had hoped he would 
mention what he had for sale.] 

I ventured to ask him " How was trade ? " And he said " So-so." 

I then said we would drop in, and if we liked his house as well as any other, we 
would give him our custom. 

He said he thought we would like his establishment well enough to confine our- 
selves to it — said he never saw anybody who would go off and hunt up another 
man in his line after trading with him once. 

That sounded pretty complacent, but barring that natural expression of villainy 
which we all have, the man looked honest enough. 

I do not know how it came about exactly, but gradually we appeared to melt 
down and run together, conversationally speaking, and then everything went along 
as comfortably as clockwork. 

We talked, and talked, and talked — at least I did ; and we laughed, and laughed, 
and laughed — at least he did. But all the time I had my presence of mind about 
me — I had my native shrewdness turned on "full head," as the engineers say. I 
was determined to find out all about his business in spite of his obscure answers — 
and I was determined I would have it out of him without his suspecting what I was 
at. I meant to trap him with a deep, deep ruse. I would tell him all about my 
own business, and he would naturally so warm to me during this seductive burst 
of confidence that he would forget himself, and tell me all about his affairs before 
he suspected what I was about. I thought to myself, My son, you little know what 
an old fox you are dealing with. I said — 

" Now you never would guess what I made lecturing this winter and last spring? " 

"No — don't believe I could, to save me. Let me see — let me see. About two 
thousand dollars, maybe ? But no ; no, sir, I know you couldn't have made that 
much. Say seventeen hundred, maybe ? " 

" Ha ! ha! I knew you couldn't. My lecturing receipts for last spring and this 
winter were fourteen thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars. What do you 
think of that ? " 

" Why, it is amazing — perfectly amazing. I will make a note of it. And you 
say even this wasn't all ? " 



3 1 8 MA RK 7' WA IN ' S SKE 7 'CUES. 

"All! Why bless you, there was my income from the Daily Warwhoop for four 
months — about — about — well, what should you say to about eight thousand dollars, 
for instance ? " 

" Say ! Why, I should say I should like to see myself rolling in just such anothei 
ocean of affluence. Eight thousand ! I'll make a note of it. Why man ! — and on 
top of all this I am to understand that you had still more income? " 

" Ha! ha! ha! Why, you're only in the suburbs of it, so to speak. There's my 
book, 'The Innocents Abroad' — price $3.50 to $5.00, according to the binding. 
Listen to me. Look me in the eye. During the last four months and a half, saying 
nothing of sales before that, but just simply during the four months and a half, we've 
sold ninety-five thousand copies of that book. Ninety-five thousand! Think of 
it. Average four dollars a copy, say. It's nearly four hundred thousand dollars, 
my son. I get half." 

"The suffering Moses! I'll set that down. Fourteen-seven-fifty — eight — two 
hundred. Total, say — well, upon my word, the grand total is about two hundred 
and thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars ! Is that possible ? " 

"Possible ! If there's any mistake it's the other way. Two hundred and four- 
teen thousand, cash, is my income for this } ear if / know how to cipher." 

Then the gentleman got up to go. It came over me most uncomfortably that 
maybe I had made my revelations for nothing, besides being flattered into stretch- 
ing them considerably by the stranger's astonished exclamations. But no; at the 
last moment the gentleman handed me a large envelope, and said it contained his 
advertisement ; and that I would find out all about his business in it; and that he 
would be happy to have my custom — would in fact, he proud to have the custom 
of a man of such prodigious income; and that he used to think there were several 
wealthy men in the city, but when they came to trade with him, he discovered that 
they barely had enough to live on ; and that, in truth it had been such a weary, 
weary age since he had seen a rich man face to face, and talked to him, and 
touched him with his hands, that he could hardly refrain from embracing me — in 
fact, would esteem it a great favor if I would let him embrace me. 

This so pleased me that I did not try to resist, but allowed this simple-hearted 
stranger to throw his arms about me and weep a few tranquilizing tears down the 
back of my neck. Then he went his way. 



A MYSTERIOUS VISIT. 319 



As soon as he was g©ne I opened his advertisement. I studied it attentively for 
four minutes. I then called up the cook, and said — 

"Hold me while I faint! Let Marie turn the griddle-cakes." 

By and by, when I came to, I sent down to the rum mill on the corner and hired 
an artist by the week to sit up nights and curse that stranger, and give me a lift 
occasionally in the daytime when I came to a hard place. 

Ah, what a miscreant he was ! His " advertisement " was nothing in the world 
but a wicked tax-return — a string of impertinent questions about my private affairs, 
occupying the best part of four foolscap pages of fine print — questions, I may 
remark, gotten up with such marvelous ingenuity, that the oldest man in the world 
couldn't understand what the most of them were driving at — questions, too, that 
were calculated to make a man report about four times his actual income to keep 
from swearing to a falsehood. I looked for a loophole, but there did not appear 
to be any. Inquiry No. 1 covered my case as generously and as amply as an 
umbrella could cover an ant hill — 

"What were your profits, during the past year, from any trade, business, or vocation, wherever 
carried on ?" 

And that inquiry was backed up by thirteen others of an equally searching 
nature, the most modest of which required information as to whether I had 
committed any burglary or highway robbery, or by any arson or other secret source 
of emolument, had acquired property which was not enumerated in my statement 
of income as set opposite to inquiry No. 1. 

It was plain that that stranger had enabled me to make a goose of myself. It 
was very, very plain; and so I went out and hired another artist. By working on 
my vanity, the stranger had seduced me into declaring an income of $214,000. By 
law, $1000 of this was exempt from income-tax — the only relief I could see, and it 
was only a drop in the ocean. At the legal five per cent, I must pay to the Govern- 
ment the sum of ten thousand six hundred and fifty dollars, income-tax ! 

[I may remark, in this place, that I did not do it.] 

I am acquainted with a very opulent man, whose house is a palace., whose table 
is regal, whose outlays are enormous, yet a man who has no income, as I have often 
noticed by the revenue returns; and to him I went for advice, in my distress. He 
took my dreadful exhibition of receipts, he put on his glasses, he took his pen, and 



320 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. ^ 



presto ! — I was a pauper ! It was the neatest thing that ever was. He did it 
simply by deftly manipulating the bill of "Deductions." He set down my 
"State, national, and municipal taxes" at so much; my "losses by shipwreck, 
fire, etc.," at so much; my "losses on sales of real estate " — on "live stock sold " 
— on payments for rent of homestead " — on " repairs, improvements, interest " — on 
" previously taxed salary as an officer of the United States' army, navy, revenue 
service," and other things. He got astonishing " deductions " out of each and 
every one of these matters — each and every one of them. And when he was done 
he handed me the paper, and I saw at a glance that during the year my income, in 
the way of profits, had been one thousand tiuo hundred and fifty dollars and forty cents. 

"Now," said he, "the thousand dollars is exempt by law. What you want to do 
is to go and swear this document in and pay tax on the two hundred and fifty 
dollars." 

[While he was making this speech his little boy Willie lifted a two dollar green- 
back out of his vest pocket and vanished with it, and I would wager anything that 
if my stranger were to call on that little boy to-morrow he would make a false 
return of his income.] 

" Do you," said I, " do you always work up the 'deductions ' after this fashion in 
your own case, sir? " 

"Well, I should say so! If it weren't for those eleven saving clauses under the 
head of ' Deduction ' I should be beggared every year to support this hateful and 
wicked, this extortionate and tyrannical government." 

This gentleman stands away up among the very best of the solid men of the 
city — the men of moral weight, of commercial integrity, of unimpeachable social 
spotlessness — and so I bowed to his example. I went down to the revenue office, 
and under the accusing eyes of my old visitor I stood up and swore to lie after lie, 
fraud after fraud, villainy after villainy, till my soul was coated inches and inches 
thick with perjury, and my self-respect gone for ever and ever. 

But what of it? It is nothing more than thousands of the richest and proudest, 

and most respected, honored, and courted men in America do every year. And so 

1 don't care. I am not ashamed. I shall simply, for the present, talk little, and 

eschew fire-proof gloves, lest I fall into certain dreadful habits irrevocably. 

THE END. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 

Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 

° >fy PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

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